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What a brilliant evening! For those that couldn’t attend, you missed a good evening. We had 22 in attendance.
The evening’s presenter was Manu, Misty Cove’s South African born, and French trained Chief Winemaker. He spoke with us, answering questions and explaining why they use mainly Acacia wood barrels or rather ‘puncheons‘, which are smaller-sized barrels; as well as oak, and the effects of both woods on the various wines they make. These are imported from France and Italy. He explained how they do their harvest and where grapes come from, from the different plots they have and sometimes, where grapes they use come from outside of their district, i.e. Gisborne!
Emmanuel ‘Manu’ Bolliger
The wines are made to be on the slightly dry side, rather than the sweet side and were very interesting to taste, with sometimes surprising results.
Misty Cove has previously focused on the export market to date but have now begun focussing on the New Zealand market to introduce their wines to.
A reminder of the wines we tasted during the evening:
2022 Misty Cove Waihopai – this is their Rosé, this year the blend is Chardonnay/Pinot Noir, made with a slight fizz, and yes, it’s the champagne mixture! Their Rosé is not necessarily made with the same grapes every season.
2024 Misty Cove Estate Sauvignon Blanc – this was a surprise to non-white drinkers, whilst it smelt like a Sauv Blanc, it was smooth in the mouth!
2023 Misty Cove Estate Pinot Gris – this has 2% Gertz within in, and Manu said that over time this could get more dominant within the mixture.
2024 Misty Cove Landmark Albarino – a Spanish grape that it gaining in popularity, the grapes for this vintage come from the Gisborne area
2024 Misty Cove Landmark Riesling – again, 10 ton of grapes were brought from contract growers for this vintage, and while this wine is young it will get the kerosene people are used to with age
2022 Misty Cove Landmark Chardonnay – smooth and light in the mouth
2023 Misty Cove Estate Pinot Noir – this is their entry-level label, but with lots of fruit flavour in the mouth, this tipple was popular with those at the table.
Wednesday 11th September, 8 pm Start Door Price: Members $12 / Guests $16
This evening is to be presented by Misty Cove’s South African and French-trained Chief Winemaker, Emmanuel ‘Manu’ Bolliger. Manu’s philosophy is simple: get the grapes right and do very little in the winery. When he is not getting his hands dirty in the vineyard innovating their wine program with Acacia wood puncheons, working with new varietals or just getting all-round creative with new styles of wines – you’ll find Manu off the grid, hunting somewhere in the wilderness, or creating his own cheese, cured meats and olive oil at his piece of paradise in Rarangi.
Emmanuel ‘Manu’ Bolliger
Misty Cove isn’t your typical wine brand. Founded in 2008 by New Zealander Andrew Bailey, it’s a story of breaking conventions. Now led by a tight-knit crew team, who blend traditional winemaking with Kiwi ingenuity, crafting bold wines that defy expectations. With vineyards across Marlborough and New Zealand, their wines travel worldwide, embodying their motto, “Wine for Good Times.” They celebrate individuality, encouraging people to forge their own paths and share memorable moments over a glass of Misty Cove Wines.
Our wines for the evening are:
2022 Misty Cove Waihopai
2024 Misty Cove Estate Sauvignon Blanc
2023 Misty Cove Estate Pinot Gris
2024 Misty Cove Landmark Albarino
2024 Misty Cove Landmark Riesling
2022 Misty Cove Landmark Chardonnay
2023 Misty Cove Estate Pinot Noir
Misty Cove Wine Group Limited offers more than just quality wines. The company also boasts cellar door accommodation located in the heart of the Marlborough wine country, away from it all, while still being close to all the good stuff. The accommodation comes complete with a private pool, garden, barbecue facilities, free WIFI, and free private parking.
From the Misty Cove website
Ask any winemaker and they’ll tell you that the flavour and characteristics of a wine shouldn’t be overly influenced by the wood during fermentation. Instead, the wood is intended to support the wine – and merely add a little ‘spice’. It’s a balancing act between the flavours of the wood and the fruit.
Lately, a few winemakers have been questioning the dominating role that oak has played in winemaking. There is the view that by adding something to the wine – that ‘woodiness’ in oak – you’re merely masking or adding too much to the fruit and fermentation.
In walks acacia wood to the scene, who is now unquestionably the new player in town. Winemakers have discovered that judicious use of acacia barrels during production adds floral notes, improved texture and less of a “woody” taste. Thus, the appeal of acacia barrels lies not so much in the flavours they impart but rather the lack of flavours. Compared with oak, acacia’s contribution is mostly textural.
Firstly, it’s native to America and it was brought over to Europe in the 17th century. Its common name is Black Locust tree. And it’s actually a family of the legume, so it’s a legume. Acacia, which comes from forests in northern France, is sawed rather than split into saves, and is now used by a handful of wineries worldwide.
MONIQUE FORD/STUFF Wine emojis to help you choose a bottle.
If you feel lost as to what wine to serve at your Moroccan-inspired dinner party this weekend, one website is on a mission to help – using a database of unique, and very cute, specialised emojis.
When lockdown forced Wellington’s Noble Rot Wine Bar to close in March 2020, three wine experts used the downtime to create a database of wine profiles. The ultimate goal was to simplify the wine-buying process for the average consumer.
Two years later, Wine-oji, is a website featuring 221 emoji-like images designed to help anyone pick the perfect bottle of wine, whether they know what wine they enjoy or not.
Noble Rot owners Josh Pointon and Maciej Zimny, with head sommelier Jessica Wood, launched Wine-oji last December. Wood says the response has been “amazing” from consumers and producers.
But what exactly is Wine-oji, and how does a collection of wine-related emojis help someone pick a bottle of wine?
MONIQUE FORD/STUFF Wine-Oji was an idea born out of lockdown.
The website is a colourful, busy and interactive library of images used to describe flavour profiles, production methods and ideal food pairings for wines.
The list is pretty extensive. Images are allocated to primary aromas, such as fruits and vegetables, as well as floral notes such as jasmine and honeysuckle or earthy tones of oak and wet stone.
Secondary aromas, which come from the winemaking process, oak ageing, oxidation and bottle ageing include popcorn, butterscotch, oak, berries and fruit and tar and rubber, among others.
Wood says while the library of wine emojis is fun, the interactive “find your perfect match” section is where customers can hone in on exactly what they are after in a wine.
“You can search any winery or flavour,” she says. Users can also simply search for the food they plan to eat and find the perfect pairing.
“If you’re cooking snapper tonight, you can type snapper, and it will bring up all the wines that have any of those Wine-ojis allocated to the profile.”
MONIQUE FORD/STUFF The initial idea began when Wood realised she was fielding questions from customers at Noble Rot about what certain wines taste like.
She says the site also allows people to open their minds a bit to try new wines.
“[You can find] things you’ll actually like, rather than based on wine that’s discounted heavily at the store, or because you tried it before, or like the label. It’s actually all about your experience of the wine.”
The initial idea began when Wood realised she was fielding questions from customers at Noble Rot about what certain wines taste like, and what wines pair best with certain foods.
And so the idea of creating a database of flavours, profiles and distributor information began to form.
“We … started composing a list of the key aromas and flavours, and structural components of the wine, that we could then build into a bit of a library. That became the new language – the language of Wine-oji,” she says.
The creation of the images was hugely important, Wood says. They brought in a local graphic designer to help create the library. They needed to be well-designed, but they also had to appeal to people who are not wine experts.
MONIQUE FORD/STUFF People need no previous knowledge of wine to use the emoji wine website.
“They had to be easily recognisable, quite quickly, by the average consumer.”
“There is a huge problem in that people don’t know what wine they like, or what wine they should buy. There’s never really been an understanding of their flavour profile or their taste preferences.”
“We were thinking, how can we translate to people quickly and instantly what’s in their bottle of wine using images rather than words?” she says.
The resulting database is something Wood insists people need no previous knowledge of wine to use.
“You just need to know if you like something or not,” she says.
Using the interactive section of the site, a search for “lemon” results in 33 bottles of wine. Of those, two are Pinot Gris and 12 are Chardonnay. The selections can be further filtered by wine type or vintage.
For each bottle, the full Wine-oji profile can be viewed. There are eight sections: aroma, flavour, sweetness, acidity, body, oak, finish and food. Each is illustrated with the relevant Wine-ojis.
MONIQUE FORD/STUFF Wine-Oji will give you the nous to have a good nose for wine – no experience required.
My 2019 Main Divide Riesling, for instance, had an acidity rating of 4½ lemons out of 5. Its sweetness is only worthy of one lollipop, however, and in terms of the body, my chosen riesling shows 2½ bodybuilders out of a possible 5.
My chosen wine also pairs well with prawn skewers, pad thai, Moroccan couscous and snapper ceviche.
And after two years of creating an extensive database of wine-related imagery, what are Wood’s favourite Wine-ojis?
She has a few, including lily, jasmine and ginger. She is also a fan of the food pairings.
