New Zealan, final impressions

We finally headed south to Central Otago and saw some great scenery along the way....at least until we came to the glacier town of Franz Joseph. We were lucky enough to walk up to the glacier and get some photos. Later that evening it started raining and rained the entire next day on our trip to Central Otago and we missed the spectacular(or so they say) scenery of the Southern Alps.

After a night in Wanuka, we made our way to Queenstown to explore the wines of Central Otago. We stopped briefly at Carrick and then moved on to one of the stars of the region, Mt. Difficulty. Mt. Difficulty sits on a hill with spectacular views. We sat out on the terrace and enjoyed the views and the booms of the bird cannons coming from the cherry orchards below. Most of Mt. Difficulty's single vineyard Pinot Noirs were sold out and the one remaining was about $80 New Zealand dollars which was close to the norm for single vineyard bottlings. With the exchange rate being so poor, it was a stretch to take a chance on something we couldn't taste. But we sat happily drinking a lower tier Pinot called Roaring Meg, named after the famous waterfall in a New Zealand state park, who's name escapes me at the moment.

After Mt. Difficulty we headed to Quartz reef and later to Felton Road. Danny Schuster had told us to stop in at Quartz Reef and see  Rudi  Bauer, an Austrian who had worked  several vintages at Sokol Blossor. I think Rudi said something that put Central Otago into perspective, that these were still young days for this winegrowing area. I liked Rudi's 2006 Pinot Noir as well as anyones in Central and I imagine his single vineyard wines were that much better. I think he is producer to keep an eye on.

Leaving Quartz Reef we headed to what I thought were the best wines we tasted in Central, Felton Road. Their wines were a little more balanced than most. My impression of Central Otago overall were of very high acid wines. I don't know if that was indicative of the 2006 vintage, or a preference throughout the region. But the ph on these wines rendered most of the wines hard and acidic to me. I can't say that I found much mid palate in any of the wines and when we left Central Otago, I wondered if some of these wines would ever even out in the cellar. But that is my impression of a lot of Burgundies I taste as well.

It remains to be see, I suppose, the ageability of New Zealand Pinot Noirs. Overall I was very impressed with the people, but more excited about the Riesling than the Pinot Noir. In Central Otago, the wines were more varietal in the nose than up north, but they lacked the suppleness. In the north, the wines were more supple, but had more secondary flavors, probably from the extended macerations that seemed to be the norm. My favorite wine was still the wine my friend Paul opened in Wellington, the 1999 Dry River Pinot Noir. Perhaps my second favorite was the wine from Danny Schuster, the 2006 Ohmi Hills Pinot Noir. I loved the wines of Neudorf, Ata Rangi, overall, my two favorite producers. And, I  just sat with a bottle of the Fromm Riesling last night with Thai food, a perfect match, I can't wait to taste the single vineyard Fromm Pinot's I brough back in 6 or 7 years.   I also came back a better knowledge of biodynamic farming than I ever had and an appreciation for how gracious wine people can be with our visit to Seresin.

I wish I would have brought back more Riesling, nearly every producer has them and most are good. It makes me think of how forgotten that wine is with the general population here, though in wine circles it is making a bit of a resurgence. I did bring a lot of Pinot Noir back to share with others as well as a sense that I will follow New Zealand wines more closely and return someday to see how far they have come. More importantly, I brought back images of the people I met, the information they shared and how great they were in general.

On the plane over, I talked with a young engineer who lives in San Francisco but is from New Zealand. He pretty much summed it up. "The difference," he said, "between us and American, is that we don't talk as much about what we are capable of or what we have done, we just go out and do it." I found that same understated attitude in all the wine people we met and that alone, is worth another trip.