Tis the season for wine....

Only 6 weeks until Christmas - the silly season has officially started again with Christmas parties, birthday parties (for some reason there are a lot in Dec-Jan), and then there's that funny phenomenon of needing to catch up with people before the end of the year.

This last week I put myself on the 'wine' line, trying out the best of the season.  I've been to a Champagne tasting, First Glass on Wednesday, an Ascension new release tasting, and lab night last Sunday. 

Here are some of the wine highlights from this week, which are incidentally all whites, but that's probably because summer is coming:

1. Cuisine top ten Champagne -
-Taittinger Les Folies de la Marquetterie NV.  My favourite last year was also the Tattinger, so not much of a surprise, but this single vinyard champagne was exquisite with plenty of silky bubbles, slight citrus and yeast, and a long lingering finish. Yum.  This is the special ocassion wine for Christmas.
-Piper NV was also impressive this year.  This is slightly lower in price, but hits the right marks.  It was generous and yeasty in the right ways and showed better than the Veuve or the Moet on the night, though these never disappoint either.

2. First Glass 12 Different Varieties
-Villa Maria 2010 Ihumatao Chardonnay from Auckland.  Villa's Ihumatao and Keltern Chardonnays are consistently among my favourite NZ Chardonnays.  It is best summed up in the First Glass newsletter: Mouthfilling, beautifully balanced and quite simply delicious.
Incidentally, the Air New Zealand Wine Awards have just been announced and the Villa Maria Keltern 2010 just won 3 Trophys: Champion Wine of the Show, Champion Sustainable Wine, and Champion Chardonnay. Neither the Ihumatao or Keltern will disappoint.
-Lawsons Pioneer Series Gewurtztraminer 2010 from Marlborough.  This is a winner of a Gewurtz.  Another of my favourite Gewurtz is Johaneshoff and this is right up there with it.  Slightly European in character and well balanced.  It has also just been awarded a trophy at the Air New Zealand Wine Awards for Champion Exhibition White or Sparkling

For those interested, here's a link to the Air New Zealand Wine Awards Trophy list: http://www.airnzwineawards.com/assets/sm/6816/73/anzwa-trophy-list-2011.pdf

3. Ascension new release tasting
This was a great tasting put on by Ascension vinyards from Matakana at the Hopetoun Alpha in Auckland. About 500 people turned up to try the 7 new releases, with nibbles matched to each wine.  The favourites of the night were on the white side of the ledger with a lovely Rose called 'The Roasrian' Matakana Rose 2011 which wasn't too sweet and had a bit of substance to it. We also liked the 'the Vestal Virgin' Matakana Viognier 2011.  Nice and aromatic, the right amount of spice, and refreshingly summery.  Ascension is only about an hour up the road from Auckland and such a nice place for a wine lunch with friends. I might have to put that on the list of places to visit this summer - it consistently seems to make the list of top 10 wine, beer, food, entertainment places.
On another wine note, I have also just received my latest 'Fine Cooking' magazine from the US and it was great to see a New Zealand wine matched with a Christmas dinner course.  The Coopers Creek Sauvignon Blanc was matched with Potted Shrimp on Toast with Celery Radish Salad.  We quite often have some of the Coopers Creek crew at Lab Night, so it's great to see their global reach!

Finally, here are some of the wine pics  from Lab Night at Pinot Plus at our table(only a small selection as there so many other nice wines including a Coleraine at the neighbouring table). The food, wine and company were as great as ever.

2009 Ten Minutes by Tractor Pinot Noir from Mornington Penninsula in Vic, Australia.  We are heading over there shortly, so was great to sample in advance what we're in for.

Dry River 2007 Syrah and 2000 Mt Langi Shiraz (one of my all time favourite Australian wines!)

Here's the South African treat of the month

Not sure I have done the entree justice with this picture.  It was Ceviche (yum!) and egg plant roulade wrapped around a fig and walnut paste.  Very nice.

Update - just thought I'd add some of the comments Jo made on some of the wines from the Lab Night email:

I guess it goes without saying that there were many stunning wines.  Here are some notes on just a few of them:

·         2002 Palliser Estate Martinborough Reisling.  This wine was definitely showing its age – but not in a bad way.  On the nose lovely apple and grapefruit notes were paired with a heady kerosene note.  The palate was honey and crisp granny smith.  An absolute delight.

·         2009 Ten Minutes by Tractor Estate Pinot Noir.  This was a surprise package from the Swainbanks who recently holidaying in this region.  It was fabulously heady with aromas of strawberries and red cherry, with a bright and vivacious palate with the same flavour spectrum as the nose.  Along with its youth and exuberance, this lighter style Pinot Noir was beautifully made, and showed all the varietal characters you’d hope for in a  Pinot Noir.

·         2005 Valli Bannockburn Pinot Noir.  Wow!  This Pinot is at the other end of the spectrum.  With a few years of age on it, this wine was an amazing mix of primary fruit (mostly dark cherries) and dense secondary forest floor, mushroom, and gamey notes.  It went stunningly well with the slightly wintery foods we were eating.

·         2005 Miles Mossop Wines Max.  This Bordeaux blend from the Stellenbosch region in South Africa was a balanced mixture of power and elegance.  A Cabernet forward blend gave it very striking notes of cassis, with Petit Verdot and Merlot providing balance and texture to the wine.  It truly filled the mouth with flavour that seemed to carry on and on, and despite having six years of age on it the wine felt young and vibrant still. 

·         2005 Te Mata Coleraine.  This wine was everything you’d expect.  Cassis balanced with lovely herby and brambly notes, but without ever feeling under ripe or vegetal.  The tannins were fine but still had a good presence on the edges of the tongue that made it feel like it could have aged for many more years getting silkier and silkier.  This wine justified its ranking as one of NZ’s finest Bordeaux blends.  A word of warning however; it may have just been this bottle but the cork (whilst it wasn’t leaking at all) was very soft and despite a corkscrew being screwed through the entire length of the cork still tore in half (with a core being removed from the bottom half of the cork).  Fortunately, we did manage to get the cork out in the end.  Just be mindful of this when opening any 2005s that you have lying around (oh to be so lucky).