Archive for July, 2009
Law Commission Liquor Review Released
You can find the report here. The NZ Herald has a report here. In their press release The law commission say they are putting forward the following ideas for public discussion. A completely new Sale of Liquor Act Measures aimed at curbing harmful drinking including options designed to reduce the availability of cheap alcohol products [...]
Help Me Design My New Wine Label
For the last couple of months you may have read about the experimental wines I’m trialling. I’ve already had considerable interest from retailers and several restaurants who have tried some of the demo wines. As yet, I have no label and that’s what people are starting to ask about. Last month we did some font [...]
Sav Blanc Price Plunge
Wow, Finally consumers get to see the true effect of the Sav glut. This shot was taken in an Auckland Supermarket last night. I also noticed that the rest of the varietal’s prices are finally starting to come back as well. As you can see from the photo it is a generic rather than an [...]
On Premise Wine Sales Under Threat
There has been plenty of talk around the wine trade about the drop in onpremise sales all year. This hearald article covers some off the issues. Of course this also effects those supply the on premise trade. On this blog it means wine producers. It’s a double wamy because restaurant and bar patrons are not [...]
Batch Number 4 Now Bottled
Friday saw the bottling of test batch number 4. The particular purpose of this batch was to demonstrate the concept without havingto worry about all the bottle fermentation issues that I’ve been facing. Thus the wine was carbonated, certyainly not as authentic but sufficeint for demonstrating the concept and letting people get their heads around [...]
Singapore
I’m going to Singapore for a couple of weeks next month to see if I can gauge some interest in the new wines I’m working on. I’ll probably do a little work for some of my clients while there as well. A rather pleasant by product of the trip will be that for the first [...]
Batch #4 Gets The Cold Treatment
Test batch 4 of my my experimental sparkling wines is to be chilled down today. Same 2008 PInot Gris base wine but this time we are going to carbonate it rather than doing a bottle fermentation. Bottling is scheduled for Friday afternoon. Just try carbonation to compare the results as it’s far simpler than doing [...]
Batch # 3 Completes Ferment in Record Time
Almost two weeks ago I bottled batch number 3 of my experimental sparkling wine. This one was another bottle fermented version. I opened one yesterday afternoon to test how fast the sugar was being consumed by the yeast. I was expecting to see the ferments roughly halfway through. However on removing the crown seal the [...]
1976 Drohin Chassagne Montrachet
Last night I got the opportunity to try a 1976 Drohin Chassagne Montrachet courtesy of a friend. Chassagne is in Burgundy France and this wine is made from Chardonnay grapes. As is usual with bottles of this sort of age there were cork “issues” and the damn thing broke off and some fell in. The [...]
Seresin Adds More Horsepower
Just couldn’t resist this photo. Thanks the the team at Seresin for letting me use it. They are developing a horse drawn sprayer for their biodynamic vineyard. You can find out more on their blog. No word on what variety the horse prefers.