The second week of New Zealand begins in Martinborough. This Monday morning, I am due to be taken into the air so that I can take some aerial shots of the vineyards, but alas the clouds conspire to keep my feet firmly on the ground and so I spend the morning catching up on e-mails etc.
The journalists then convene for a lunch on an open garden lawn overlooking the rolling hills and dales, accompanied by canapes and recent releases of wine, all interspersed with canon fire.
I am not joking.
On the lawn there lies a miniature canon around 15-inches long, but don’t let its diminutive size fool you. It lets rip an almighty, deafening explosion that could sink a Spanish armada (if one were to approach New Zealand in the 21st century.) For no reason whatsoever, Oz Clarke lights the charge for a second shot dressed in a full-length black mink coat and cowboy hat. It’s just one of those days.
We reach Wellington in the evening for the opening ceremony of the Pinot Noir 2010 Conference, which begins with a traditional haka and a young Maori troupe singing and dancing. The songs are achingly beautiful, the dancing both provocative and exhausting just to watch. I make a mental note to avoid a career as a Maori dancer because my eyeballs cannot bulge out of their sockets and my tongue cannot extend several inches from my mouth. The opening speech is given by New Zealand PM John Key: a rare instance of a leading politician admitting the existence of wine without linking it to the devil and the inexorable decline of modern society.
Tuesday is when the conference begins properly. There are some interesting debates on the current state of the New Zealand wine industry and a blind tasting of 2003 Pinot Noirs that master sommelier Evan Goldstein and I agree, are a bit rubbish. Therefore, we are extremely surprised when the incumbent panel of experts proceed to discuss the wines as if they had just tasted a horizontal of DRC 1945s.
Are they at a different tasting? I cannot abide this charade anymore, so take to the microphone and public denounce the wines (except number eight) which ultimately leads to nearly every delegate personally congratulating me for speaking their mind. Even the panelists start to back pedal on their initial conclusions, but at least they have come to life.
In the evening, I join some friends at the legendary watering hole: The Matterhorn, where I drink copious amounts of Mojito because: they taste delicious, they make a change from fermented grape juice and never get me drunk. Unfortunately, in the final round we go off piste and the nameless rum-based, sour cocktail is a rather lethal. I depart around 2.00am with fellow scribes and we have one cheeky shot of tawny port as a night cap in the lobby of the Intercontinental. I pray to Bacchus that I will be spared a hangover the next morning.
Filed under: new zealand Tagged: | new zealand, pinot noir conference 2010, the matterhorn
