Gianina Schwanecke, Stuff| 12:24, Aug 11 2022
Napier’s iconic National Tobacco Company factory on Ossian St in Ahuriri has gone from one vice to another. It is now home to a brewery, urban winery and, more recently, The National Distillery Company.
It is there that Blair Nicholl is doing the seemingly impossible, turning Hawke’s Bay-grown grapes into wine, then into gin.
A bartender by trade, he has seen firsthand the “ebbs and flows” of the wine and craft beer industries.
He says that New Zealand is one of the biggest wine exporters to the United States and could soon be the powerhouse of the spirit industry.
“It’s what the New Zealand spirits industry has got ahead of them if we band together.”
Nicholl’s foray into distilling came when he, best friend, and business partner Ricardo Reis made a gin using botanicals found in women’s luxury beauty products for a Wānaka event in 2018. Their gin caught the eye of Cardrona’s head distiller, who invited them for a tour.
They relocated to Napier, where Nicholl began distilling from his kitchen. A chance opportunity brought them to the building that had been on his vision board for ten years.
Like the dynamic duo, the owners were from Kāpiti and eager to see what these “Kiwi blokes with a dream” could do.
In early 2020, Nicholl and Reis found themselves in New York – dressed in jandals and T-shirts despite the cold – promoting their gins alongside New Zealand Trade and Enterprise.
“We stood out because we don’t take ourselves too seriously, but we’re deadly serious.”
Interest was growing in their product, and they would soon go on to win many accolades and awards in spirit-making competitions, beating big brands such as Beefeater, Bombay Sapphire and Tanqueray.
But when Covid-19 hit, the pair “thought the National Distillery dream was over,” Nicholl says.
Bloody Syrah is available exclusively direct from the National Distillery Company.
With no means to sell alcohol, he and Reis began making hand sanitiser using grapes from Clearview winery, owned by long-time friend Tim Turvey, where the pandemic had also brought production to a near halt.
While it allowed them to keep the business going, it was terribly boring for a creative like Nicholl.
Then he got the idea for what became known as Bloody Syrah: a gin made from wine.
“Wine is my first love. It’s something I’m extremely passionate about,” Nicholl says.
But he thought he could go a step further.
Using grapes from the coastal vineyard, Nicholl and Reis made a syrah, aged it in barrels, and played around distilling it into a clear, neutral spirit. Then they added the gin botanicals, distilled it again, put it back into oak, and left it for 12 months, turning it amber.
“We were trying to capture white pepper, and intense berry and earthy tones – the type of syrah that Hawke’s Bay is famous for.”
They bottled about 130 all up, corked and waxed, also like wine. The label draws inspiration from Penfolds, one of Australasia’s oldest wineries, and includes a dedication to Turvey.
Nicholl isn’t sure if his syrah gin is a world first, but it might well be, and it is certainly something he is happy to cross off his bucket list.
“I’m all about trying things that people haven’t done before or say can’t be done.”
At 44% alcohol by volume (ABV), Nicholl describes Bloody Syrah as the “cognac of gins”.
“Sit on one of these at a dinner party, and you only need one or two to be the life of the party. As long as Tim Turvey and myself aren’t there,” he laughs.