CLINK

BRUNCH IS BACK, BABY!

IMMEDIATELY APPEALING

The 2020 Riesling from our friends at Ataahua is delicious! It’s ripe, fragrant, and has an immediately appealing bouquet showing lime, spiced apple, orange peel, and subtle honey complexity. The palate delivers excellent focus and juicy fruit intensity, backed by a little sweetness, which is perfectly balanced by refreshing acidity, leading to a lingering tasty finish. ataahuawine.co.nz

BLAME IT ON THE JUICE

Orange, ice, and no need to be precise – that’s all this AMappropriate cocktail calls for. It’s bang-on, and one leads to another as brunch turns into lunch. The turmeric and ginger base is mellowed out with hand-pressed carrot and orange juices, spiked with cardamom vodka to put pep in your step. Best enjoyed with the sunrise on the horizon at Pink Lady Rooftop. pinkladyrooftop.co.nz

CALL ME BUBBLES, DARLING

Alana Wines’ concisely named Bubbles is elegant and delicately expressed. The bouquet shows green apple, nectarine, and grapefruit characters with a hint of floral overtone. It’s finely textured and linear on the palate, offering bright fruit flavours backed by zesty acidity, finishing long and mouthwatering. Sam Kim (Wine Orbit) scored this 90/100 with 4.5/5 stars. alana.co.nz

A SIDE OF SUNSHINE

The scent of summer is in the air for the entire team at Grater Goods, and they’re ready for you! Treat yourself to one of the plant-based platters and a glass or two of your choice. The sunshine will really complete the picture for you. Are you perhaps after a lunch date? We love the Fricken (faux chicken) Burger, and of course, the KFT – tofu like you’ve never seen it before. Grater Goods has perfected its plant-based offerings. Flip and friends are open from 10am to help you welcome in the new warmer seasons. gratergoods.co.nz

THE BATTLE OF SPRING

Nik Mavromatis Greystone Wines greystonewines.co.nz Spring in the vineyards of North Canterbury is a frightening time for growers. We have one of the best climates in the world for growing grapes: dry autumns, low humidity, good airflow. It’s great, except for that one thing – frost.

This is what literally keeps the entire wine industry up at night throughout spring.

Right now, the furry little buds start to pop out of the dormant vines. These little babies will grow on throughout summer to help produce our grapes at harvest. But like baby turtles running to the ocean, not every one of these buds will make it.

Some will be removed by hand as the vineyard teams look to concentrate the vines’ growth in the best areas; this is called budrubbing. Whilst others will be frozen off by those hard frosty mornings of September and October. This can drastically reduce our grape volumes as those buds will never develop.

Grape growers have acquired a myriad of tricks to fight this since time immemorial. In the past, you would have seen burning pots of oil and diesel, but now it’s more likely to be frost fans, helicopters, or even electric heating wires in the vineyard. These are obviously all horrendously expensive, but when your entire year’s work can be destroyed in a couple of hours, it is worth it.

At Greystone, we use a fine water mist sprayed from many sprinklers. This ingenious technique uses some weird physics. As the water freezes, it releases latent heat, which is enough to save the bud from being destroyed!

So when our frost alarms go off, our vineyard team rushes out to start the sprinkler system and work all night to protect the vines.

This can be many nights in a row in cooler springs, hence why our vineyard team usually looks so grumpy this time of year. 2021 vintage will sadly be remembered across New Zealand for devastating frosts that were so cold few systems could protect the vines. While this is terrible for the vineyards, the low yields and dry summer made the wines incredibly concentrated. So expect glorious wines – but they won’t be cheap as the whole country was affected.

Please make sure you support your local grape growers right now and enjoy a chance to relax and taste the combination of hard work and mother nature that wine brings together.