SUNDAY SEDIMENT | 60 by Glengarry Wines

Glengarry's Sunday ramblings of all things vinous, grain and glorious. The Sunday Sediment. Issue Sixty

Welcome to the Sixtieth edition of The Sunday Sediment, a collection of what’s new, what’s on and what’s happening instore at Glengarry and within the world of wine. Sip away.

SEPTEMBER WINELETTER 244 - ITALY

Italy has always held its own special place in Glengarry’s fluttering vinous heart. Our love affair with the home of artists, gladiators, sinking cities and pizza goes back to the dawn of time when the first Glengarry store was just a cave in a hill, and we’ve been importing beautifully designed Italian gems to titillate New Zealand’s tastebuds ever since. Italians do the quality to value ratio extremely well. They are also fiercely proud of their regional fare, and tend to eat and drink the stuff made just down the road. Thus a proud proliferation of vinos based on indigenous varieties can be found throughout the Italian wine portfolio. The Italians are old hands at la dolce vita, and their vinos are just as brilliant as ever. We source our imports from the length and breadth of Italy, ticking off the top wineproducing regions, benchmark producers and whatever new up-andcoming gems we can uncover. From everyday tasty tipples to the serious top-end titans, Italy really does have something for everybody. Read More..

ITALY TOSCANA

Along with Piemonte, Tuscany has the highest percentage of top-tier DOCG wines, and is home to the scarlet giants Chianti, Brunello di Montalcino and Vino Nobile di Montepulciano. It is here that the new meets the old head-on, giving rise to the socalled Super Tuscans. The region’s premier variety is Sangiovese, which used to make the ubiquitous Chianti, with the variety’s greatest expression derived from the legendary Brunello clone developed by Montalcino’s Biondi-Santi family. Read more ....

SANTA MARGHERITA Santa Margherita is both a winery and a collection of wineries. Santa Margherita The Winery straddles the regions of Veneto and Trentino-Alto Adige. Originally forged back in 1935, it is the flagship of a select group, known as Santa Margherita Gruppo Vinicolo, that encompasses Lombardia’s illustrious Ca’ del Bosco Winery and Sicilia’s Terreliade. Santa Margherita are well known for their innovation, and led the way forward in 1961 when they applied traditional white winemaking techniques to Pinot Grigio fruit, grown in

Trentino-Alto Adige, creating the fresh, crisp style of Grigio we know and love today. Read more ....

CECCHI The heart of this distinguished winery is the Cecchi family, who have been involving themselves with things vinous since 1893, when ancestor Luigi first took a job as a wine taster. Today, the family-run company is headed up by Cesare and Andrea Cecchi; not Cesare & Andrea Cecchi

ones to stand still, they currently own a total of 300ha spread across four different areas in central Italy, with their home-base nestled in among the Chianti vines in the heart of Tuscany. Special care is taken at Cecchi to protect the land and preserve the characters of the vineyards, a quality that shines through in all the wines they make. Read More..

CASTELLO MONTAUTO The castle of MontaĂšto sits atop the ridge that it shares with the village of the same name. From the castle, the view across the valley to the town of San Gimignano is something quite special. San Gimignano is home to the white variety Vernaccia and Italyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s first DOC (Denominazione di Origine Controllata), which was granted in 1966. Now a family residence, the castle was purchased by the Cecchis in 1988 and is surrounded by top-notch vineyards from which they make their Vernaccia di San

Gimignano and their Chianti. Made in tiny quantities, these wines are a snapshot of the terroir in this magical place. Read more ....

BIONDI SANTI The Biondi-Santi family are the original champions of the legendary Brunello, the Sangiovese clone isolated in the 1800s by local farmer Clemente Santi that evolved into one of Italy’s rarest and most expensive wines, Brunello di Montalcino. Not ones to rush into things, the Biondi-Santis had by the end of WWII released only four vintages in 1888, 1891, 1925 and 1945. The residing Patriarch was, until recently, Franco Biondi-Santi, described intriguingly by his grand-daughter Clio as being ‘a hard man, but he has a good heart.’ In the way of families, Franco and son Jacopo parted company, not without acrimony. Now, sadly, the Patriarch is no longer with us, and Jacopo has returned to the fold to head up this historic and iconic family enterprise. Read more ....

AN AUSTRIAN A-GAME | QUARTZ REEF

from his own estate-grown fruit, in the style of France’s Grower champagnes. Rudi is an ardent advocate of biodynamics, and Quartz Reef’s two 15-hectare Bendigo vineyards are strictly maintained using the principles developed by fellow Austrian, Rudolf Steiner. The management regime of the BioGro-certified organic, Demeter-certified biodynamic vineyards is arduous and time Named for NZ’s largest quartz deposit lying

consuming, but the resulting wines speak for

beneath it, the Quartz Reef winery is the vision

themselves, with the entire portfolio produced

of Austrian-born Rudi Bauer, a qualified

in-house under Rudi’s watchful eye.

viticulturist and gifted winemaker with an outstanding track record. Rudi is on a mission, seemingly for life, to make wines that exhibit ‘a symphony of flavours that capture attention and entertain so that you forget everything else’. His Pinot Noir is world-class, and his superb methodes champion brilliantly the potential of our southernmost regions for sparkling wine, produced as they are entirely

Known for being direct and to the point, Rudi Bauer is a man who won’t settle for secondbest. His consummate creations bear testament to that philosophy. Read More..

QUARTZ REEF TASTING

KHYBER PASS WINE CLUB | QUARTZ REEF Join us as we explore the organic and biodynamic wines of Quartz Reef with winemaker Rudi Bauer! Established in 1996 and named after New Zealand’s largest quartz deposit that lies beneath the vineyards at Bendigo Station, Quartz Reef has become the vessel for Rudi calls his search to make wines that exhibit ‘a symphony of flavours that capture attention and entertain so that you forget everything else’. For just $10 extra at the event, take home a Riedel Heart to Heart Pinot Noir glass. Read more....

WHEN: Thursday 27th September WHERE: Glengarry Khyber Pass, 409 Khyber Pass Rd, Newmarket TIME: 7.00pm

BRUICHLADDICH NEW PORT CHARLOTTE WITH CHLOE WOOD ABOUTWINE

For our August Malt Club, one day after its

Port Charlotte 10-year-old is Bruichladdich’s

launch in New Zealand at the Hancocks Trade

first ever permanent introduction of an aged-

Tour, we were privileged to share with our

stated bottling, replacing the current multi-

customers the brand-new releases of Port

vintage Port Charlotte Scottish Barley. Distilled

Charlotte from the Bruichladdich distillery.

using only Scottish barley and bottled at 50% ABV. Port Charlotte Islay Barley 2011 is a new vintage distilled using only barley grown on three Islay farms and bottled at 50% ABV. Both new releases have been made from barley peated to 40ppm.

With no better person to take us through the night but Islay’s own, Chloe Wood. Chloe’s youth certainly doesn’t sway her knowledge or passion she holds for the great liquid and all things Islay! The production side of whiskymaking is what Chloe grew up surrounded by, with the Wood’s family farming land on Islay for decades; only lying four miles south of Port

Special highlights of the tasting were the

Charlotte. It wasn’t long until she started

unique characteristics coming from their own

working for Bruichladdich herself, her first job

Islay grown barley including; The Bere Barley

in fact was working at the Laddie shop at the

2008 and The Organic 2009. Watch out for

distillery; you could say the rest is history!

these in the future!

Chloe has recently taken on the role of Asia Pacific Brand Ambassador and is now situated

Finishing the night with the world’s most

in Singapore – a wee ways from the peaty

peated whisky range, Octomore 8.4 Virgin Oak

island!

and Octomore 8.3 Islay Barley which were both exceptionally well received. Read More..

TASTINGS AND EVENTS

MALT CLUB | MOUNT GAY RUM | THORNDON QUAY This Malt Club, we will have Miguel Smith, Mount Gay Ambassador, taking us on a journey to Barbados. For over 300 years, Mount Gay has been produced on the same plantation in Barbados, and this year, they release the limited edition offering Mount Gay XO: The Peat Smoke Edition. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a blend of pot still and column still rums matured in American

WHEN: Tuesday 11th September

oak barrels and then further finished in Islay

WHERE: Glengarry Thorndon,

peated whisky casks, and we can't wait to share it with you alongside more of the Mount Gay range. Read more....

53 Hutt Rd, Thorndon TIME: 6.00pm

I CAME, I SAW, I TASTED | TAKAPUNA WINE CLUB If through wine there is truth then this month at the Takapuna Wine Club let us all be scholars. As one of the world's oldest and largest producers of wine, Italy boasts a storied range of vino - many of them made from local varieties seldom grown in other places. From dry whites to sweet sparkling to some of the WHEN: Wednesday 12th September WHERE: Glengarry Takapuna, Cnr Hurstmere & Killarney, Takapuna TIME: 7.00pm

most cellar worthy reds in the world there is truly something for everyone. Come and join us then as we discuss and taste our way through a great selection of wines from right across Italy, from the Alps to Sicily! Read more....

ORGANIC WINE WEEK | LOVEBLOCK WITH KIM CRAWFORD | JERVOIS ROAD It is New Zealand’s first Organic Wine Week. Here is your chance to find out everything you want to know about organic wine from one of NZ’s leading winemakers. Kim Crawford from Loveblock Wines will be joining us in the cellar to discuss his wines and how he makes them. Since selling their brand to an international

WHEN: Tuesday 18th September

wine conglomerate, Kim and Erica Crawford

WHERE: Glengarry Jervois Rd,

have returned to their roots and been quietly

54 Jervois Rd, Ponsonby

making wine from their vineyards in Marlborough and Central Otago. Please book early so you don’t miss this rare opportunity to chat about organic winemaking with Kim Crawford. Read more....

TIME: 7.00pm

JOURNEY TO MIDDLE-EARTH (WINES OF NELSON!) | DEVONPORT The Grey family has been growing grapes in Nelson since 1996, and in 2011 they began producing their own high quality wines under the Middle-Earth label. Their cool climate wines, characterised by fruit-driven flavours, minerality, and refreshing acidity, are a true WHEN: Wednesday 19th September WHERE: Glengarry Devonport,

expression of the Tasman terroir. Join us as we explore their exceptional range.

Cnr Clarence & Wynyard, Devonport TIME: 7.00pm