Author: Editor

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July is Mid-Winter Dinner Month!

The Committee was looking to arrange the always-popular Cuba Street Bistro once again. But as the saying goes, the best laid plans of best-laid men oft gang awry. The building’s owner decided the chosen date would be a good time to undertake earthquake strengthening so the evening had to be scrapped.

However do not despair! Bistro 52 has been selected as the replacement. This is located in Lower Cuba Street and the Club has been there previously – and it very good it was too. The venue has been booked for Wednesday 19 July, with a 6.00pm start for a 6.30pm ordering of your meal. You will be welcomed with a glass of bubbles! Attached to this Newsletter is a Payment Advice for June 2017 (for both the dinner and your subscriptions). Price for the dinner is $52 per person including corkage – it’s BYO of course.

Note the date – this is a week later than the Club’s usual meeting evening. It’s the first week of the students’ new semester and they are still finalising the menu, but they have never let us down before!

This looks even now as though it will be a definite winner!

Payment Advice for June 2017

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AGM – May 2017

There was a good turnout of 27 at the AGM. Whilst the meeting was not over in the record time set in 2016, there were no contentious issues to deal with. The President gave a very full report in which he referred to the passing of two long-standing members – Maureen Davies and Ron Thomson. The supper after the meeting was enjoyed by all those attending.

The existing Committee were all re-elected. Since the AGM there have been some issues around the need for licences which are being addressed. This has entailed a fair amount of to-ing and fro-ing with WCC as can be imagined. We do not agree entirely with their view but appear to have little option but to fall into line.

Subsequent to the meeting, the Committee noticed there had been a small typographical error in the Notices of Motion. The reference to Clause 2(b) should have read Clause 4(b). To leave it unchanged makes a nonsense of Rule 2(b) so it is the intention of the Committee to implement the change as though Rule 4(b) was always the intention with appropriate advice to all members. There will also be a footnote to this effect in the AGM Minutes so the matter can be ratified at the next AGM.

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Editor offshore & Giesen

Your regular Editor is currently offshore enjoying weather that can only be warmer than here. I hope you find this edition, which is just a little shorter, of equal value to Robin’s.

I look forward to seeing as many of you as possible at Giesen/Lehman tasting. It has all the potential to be a winner.

Cheers
Richard Taylor, Acting Editor

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Size does matter!!

All you wanted to know about bottle sizes, but were afraid to ask.

Split
187 ml

Half-Bottle
Holds 375 ml or one half of the standard bottle size.

Bottle
Holds 750 ml – the standard size.

Magnum
Two bottles or 1.5 litres.

Double Magnum
Twice the size of a magnum, holding 3.0 litres, or the equivalent of 4 bottles.

Jeroboam
There are two sizes of Jeroboams: the sparkling wine Jeroboam holds 4 bottles, or 3.0 litres: the still wine Jeroboam holds 6 regular bottles, or 4.5 litres.

Rehoboam
Champagne only – 4.5 litres or 6 bottles.

Imperial
Holds 6 litres or the equivalent of 8 bottles. Tends to be Bordeaux shaped.

Methuselah
Same size as an Imperial (6 litres) but is usually used for sparkling wines and is Burgundy-shaped.

Salmanazar
Holds 12 regular bottles (one case), or 9.0 litres.

Balthazar
Holds 16 bottles or 12.0 litres.

Nebuchadnezzar
Holds 20 bottles of wine or 15.0 litres. According to my colleague John Ager, quoting from Fogwells Wine Guide, it is equivalent to 20 standard bottles (15 litres, 3.96 US gal., 3.3 UK gal.). Bill Tighe says that the Nebuchadnezzar, according to the “Random House unabridged Dictionary of the English language, as she is spoken here in the colonies, is 20 quarts, or 18.9 litres”. I suspect something amiss here! The Concise Oxford doesn’t mention the word. The Encarta World English Dictionary refers only to the Babylonian king.

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Giesen preview for June

Growing up in Germany as the sons of a stonemason may not be the most likely start for the founders of a New Zealand winery, but when you look closer, wine is practically running in Theo, Alex and Marcel Giesen’s veins. For centuries, their family members have been involved in the culinary and wine trades, as sommeliers, restaurateurs and other related careers. As youths, the boys had a hobby vineyard that first ignited their interest in grapes.

While Alex and Theo were initially travelling abroad in Australia and then through New Zealand, they quickly fell in love with the lands. The brothers noticed a limited range of wines available during a chance visit to a local wine shop, with most bottles from the warmer North Island. Alex and Theo agreed the cooler climate of the South Island would be an ideal place to grow certain wines like Riesling, a popular German varietal. This was the catalyst to purchase their first land, in Burnham on the outskirts of Christchurch.
Today, They’re proud to have operations throughout the Marlborough region. The company is built on the brothers’ shared passion and family values – every member of the Giesen Wines team works together on building up and maintaining the reputation of the Giesen name worldwide. More next month.

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AGM – From the Editor

It’s time for our AGM and we are looking forward to a great attendance. Look at the benefits, scintillating company, some nice food, some even nicer wine, and all at no cost to you personally’

The notice is incorporated above and a couple of the supporting documents are attached to the emailed newsletter. Other information will be available at the meeting. No need to bring your tasting glasses, Cellar Club glasses will be available.

Cheers
Robin Semmens, Editor

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Ata Rangi – Martinborough – March 2017

Despite a last-minute hitch over the presenter for this tasting (a family bereavement intervened), we were able to arrange for Keith Tibble, Eurovintage, to present, at very short notice, what transpired to be a wonderful tasting.

The wines presented were great wines and Keith has said that he would be available to present other tastings. It is very useful to have someone like Keith who can step in at comparatively short notice. On this occasion, we were lucky enough to have the Ata Rangi wines on hand. Great effort from him and from Murray who was organising the tasting.

To recap, the wines tasted were:

  • Lismore Pinot Gris 2016 (Conversational wine)
  • Petrie Chardonnay 2015
  • Craighall Chardonnay 2015
  • Crimson Pinot Noir 2015
  • Ata Rangi Pinot Noir2014
  • McCrone Pinot Noir 2013
  • Kahu Botrytis Riesling 2016

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Ata Rangi, Blue Wine, Fair Go, Quiz night

Ata Rangi

One of the matters that arose from the Ata Rangi tasting was the challenge to match our door charge to the cost of the evening. We don’t want to risk member resistance by charging too high a door price. We were pleased that we had a good membership turnout. This tasting was subsided by 5 to 6 dollars per member. We figure this into our costing structure but we would just like to remind members that one of the benefits of the wine club is the subsiding of tastings such as Ata Rangi, which might otherwise be more expensive than people are prepared to pay.

Blue Wine News

I hope you have all noticed that we scooped the Dominion Post with the blue wine story in the last newsletter. Observant members will have noted that the paper has only carried an item on this subject in the last week. When it comes to wine, look for it here first.

Fair Go

I refer back to the quote in a previous newsletter about making ice blocks with leftover wine, which confused me greatly as I had to ask, “what is leftover wine?” This all leads me to the last issue of this newsletter where I mentioned the Fair Go episode which highlighted that some producers were using Australian wines to bolster their cheaper lines. The argument was that as 70% of NZ white wines are exported they cannot produce enough “economy”
wines for the local market.

Quiz night

While researching for our quiz night it transpires that the average price for a bottle of New Zealand wine in Britain (where a significant amount of our wine goes) is only $5.92. Apparently, a sizable amount of NZ wine is sent to the UK in bulk and re-bottled there. Seems a lot of trouble to go to for this price. Surely they can get that amount selling locally. This confuses me almost as much as blue wine and wine ice blocks.

Cheers
Robin Semmens, Editor

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Blue Wine Is Now a Thing You Can Drink

(From the they must be joking file – Ed)

Blue Wine Is Now a Thing You Can DrinkRosé wine? So passé. Red and white? Please, those are centuries old. But now, some good news for those seeking the next big thing in beverages: a Spanish winemaker is crafting an electric blue wine.

“Try to forget all you know about wine,” the website for the brand, Gik, reads. “Ignore all the preconceptions and standards regarding [the] wine industry and turn a deaf ear to what the sommelier told you in the wine tasting last week.”

The vino is created from an undisclosed combination of red and white grapes that has “no aging procedure.”

If you want to get technical, Eater reports that the “juice is hued neon blue with anthocyanin (a pigment found in grape skin) and indigo (a dye extracted from the Isatis tinctoria plant), and a non-caloric sweetener is added as well.” A bottle sells for about $11, and is currently available in Spain, France, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and Germany, with U.S. expansion in the works.

So why blue? Eater asked co-founder Aritz Lopez, who made a case for his new product, even though he’s never had any winemaking experience. Apparently, Lopez and team were inspired by the concept of “red oceans,” which represent “business markets saturated by specialists (sharks) who fight for the same variables and for a reduced number of clients (fish), and end up in water turned red.

And how it’s necessary to revert this, by innovating and creating new variables, back to blue. This seemed poetic for us to turn a traditionally red beverage into a blue one,” López states. Form, meet poetic function. The only remaining question: will this turn our teeth blue, too? Either way: salud!

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