The wine-ing pool boy's blogs

Having sampled Decanter 2025 Wine Award winners from Craggy Range, Trinity Hill and Church Road, it was time to see how the best South Island Reds were doing, in particular, McArthur Ridge and Amisfield. My original plan had been to first visit McArthur Ridge winery near Alexandra, but it turned out the wines I wanted to taste were available at The Winery in Arrowtown (thewinery.co.nz).

The Winery, Arrowtown

This turned out to be super convenient as Jeannie had booked a very nice Airbnb (Cottage in historical Arrowtown) just a few minutes' walk away.

So off I went that evening for a brief reconnaissance of The Winery so I knew what to expect for the following morning. To my surprise, I found The Winery was open late and put on nice platters that could pass for a meal if you wanted. See a sample of tapas below as found on The Winery's website.

Tapas - Pork and sage meatballs in a smokey tomato sauce, dusted with parmesan.

And, yes, they had the wines, and many more, to sample (about 8 very good Pinot Noirs) and consider the next morning.

Central Otago is well known for its Pinot, and there are dozens to choose from. Most of it comes from the lower slopes of Mt Pisa near Cromwell, as is the case for the McArthur Ridge wines. Although I had a look at others, my main focus was the Southern Tor 2024. There were only 3 bottles, but I was assured that, between Arrowtown and Queenstown, The Winery shops, had 70 available. That was comforting because McArthur's 2022 and 2023 Southern Tor were long sold out, and only a week or so earlier, the 2023 had been awarded a Platinum, the category just below the Best in Show, Craggy Range, had won for its Te Muna. Despite that, the prices had not been increased, so you could buy the 2023's younger brother for less than $40 for a wine expected to be at least as good as 2023. Amazing! There are many other Central Pinots that are not as good but priced a lot more.

So I bought 2 Southern Tors, only because we were travelling with carry-on luggage. One of these we gave our hosts and friends, Peter and Katie, when visiting their beautiful home overlooking the wild rocky coast near Bull Creek, and it was opened for dinner that night. Wonderful stuff. I don't usually like Pinot, especially the ones that are light in colour and weight, but this was an honourable exception. Chances are, you will soon only find this wine in restaurants and speciality wine shops, but not for long.

Just to keep consumption in chronological order, the other bottle was opened at a family dinner, no kids, soon after we arrived home to Napier and was much appreciated by everyone. Those present noted the fact that it was unusual for a non-Bordeaux to be put up at all. In the meantime, the earlier family dinner, by a day only, with kids, had a celebratory importance and the last but one of our 2013 Te Mata Coleraine honoured that 40th birthday. It was very, very good. Southern Tor compared well, partly because it is a darker wine than most from Mt Pisa and had depth despite its youth. Burgundy meets Bordeaux in New Zealand.

Back to Central Otago. Not far from Arrowtown and close to Lake Hayes, we visited our second planned destination, Amisfield. There is a restaurant there, which is so highly regarded, it has made the top 15 in at least two significant world rating publications, including Global Tastemakers. Google it for the details - Amisfield's restaurant. No wonder the prices are eye-watering and bookings are hard to get. Thankfully, we were too late when a month before we tried to book, so we could afford some Amisfield wine to take home after all.

I did the tasting while Jeannie had a cup of tea. She watched with interest as waitstaff passed through the lobby carrying visually stunning smoking entrees.

On offer were 6 wines, 3 Reds and 3 Whites, presented by two pleasant, competent tasting staff who, to my surprise, did not know much about Hawkes Bay wine or its status as the 12th Wine Capital of the World, nor that Craggy Range had won a Best in Show for its Te Muna Pinot.

I liked the 2023 Amisfield Chenin Blanc and its Lowburn Terrace Riesling (sweet), but not the dry Riesling from 2024.

The Reds started with a 2020 Pinot, which was very good, from a vintage blessed by the right combination of sun and heat, at Mt Pisa. I bought one of these for $90, more than double the Southern Tor, but maybe that is how much the Tor will be if any can be bought in 5years' time. Next was a 2022 reserve, which was forgettable, too light and overpriced at $105. Last was a 2018 RKV-Rocky Knoll Vineyard Reserve Pinot Noir, which came from Amisfield's Rocky Knoll block, at Mt Pisa. It was nice but much lighter than the 2020, but much better than the 2022. It had nothing left to give and was simply not worth the $180 being asked.

As I was paying for the 2020, which meant I did not have to pay the tasting charge of $50, I noticed a staff member who looked to be a likely winemaker, and was. He turned out to know a lot more than the tasting staff. I wanted to find out why the Reds' labels offered no information about how long to keep and when to drink the bottled wine. The tasting people had not known that, nor whether it was on the Amisfield website. Anyway, I had a nice chat with the winemaker about the 2018 and 2020 vintages, but he could not explain why the aging information you expect to see with most top red wines was not on the Amisfield labels. He offered 5-7 and 7-9 years for the two wines. He agreed with me that the 2020 was very good and confirmed that the darker wine was the result of a very good vintage, which here would have meant the grapes were on the vine a lot longer than usual. Still, why would anyone pay $180 for a wine where the winemaker did not advise as to how long to keep and when to drink it. He did not disagree with my comment that I would only pay that money to impress my friends!

Back home, we have resumed drinking Hawkes Bay table Reds of the usual high quality at sane prices. Check out my recommendation - The Villa Maria Cellar selection Syrah for $20-$22!

It is August already, and it is "heart in the mouth" time out in the vineyards. It is hard frost season just as vulnerable buds and later flowers begin to appear. So far the vines have been given a decent cold shot which is always a good start, but now it can do serious harm.

A bientot.

Please note more blogs on Hawke's Bay wines shortly.