Archive for the ‘Wine’ Category
2013 Vintage Report: A Goldilocks Season
Posted in Vintage Reports - Written by Nga Waka on June 26, 2013 - 0 CommentsGrowing season (Oct-Apr) data: Rainfall (mm) Growing Degree Days (heat units) I will remember 2013 as a “Goldilocks” season and vintage – yields slightly above long-term averages and weather not too hot, not too cold, not too wet, not too dry (while we had an extended dry period a look at the monthly rainfall figures will […]
Excise = state sanctioned theft
Posted in Rants, Wine - Written by Nga Waka on June 4, 2013 - 0 CommentsWell, the government confirmed the addition of another 3c a litre to its multi-million-dollar program of stealing money from wineries and rural communities aka Excise. To put that in perspective, we are a very small winery and in our 20-odd years of operation we have now paid over a million dollars in excise! If we […]
2012 Vintage Report
Posted in Vintage Reports, Wine - Written by Nga Waka on August 7, 2012 - 0 CommentsGrowing season (Oct-Apr) data: Rainfall (mm) Growing Degree Days (heat units) I’ve been scratching my head for some time trying to make sense of this season and I’m still largely clutching at straws to explain how the seasonal data above can have produced the quality of grapes, not outstanding but certainly good, solid quality, that […]
Vine Age – the interview
Posted in Ruminations, Wine - Written by Nga Waka on June 13, 2012 - 0 CommentsI was interviewed earlier this year as part of a student’s (amy hopkinson) dissertation research on the impact of vine age on Pinot Noir quality. Here is a transcript of the interview Roger Parkinson, June 2012 A: the important of vine age on Pinot Noir quality? R: Ah, it’s a good question, our oldest Pinot […]
Polishing up the crystal ball for vintage 2012
Posted in Ruminations, Wine - Written by Nga Waka on March 14, 2012 - 0 Comments14 March 2012 The land of the long, white cloud has truly lived up to its name this growing season. At the end of February, Growing Degree Days (GDD) had reached a paltry 756 heat units. Nearly half way through March we have accumulated a further 50 heat units to reach 806 heat units in […]
2011 Vintage Report – the season of weird
Posted in Vintage Reports, Wine - Written by Nga Waka on June 10, 2011 - 0 CommentsRainfall (mm) Growing Degree Days (heat units) “When the going gets weird, the weird turn professional” – Hunter S. Thompson. The season of weird got underway with a Spring devoid of frosts, the first for many years. Having finally installed a wind machine in the Home Block last year the frost gods had the […]
We’re all in this together ….. yeah right
Posted in Rants, Wine - Written by Nga Waka on November 3, 2010 - 2 CommentsMy alternative title for this blog was something along the lines of “why promoting domestic consumption of New Zealand wine will be vital for price recovery and why industry politics will ensure it doesn’t happen” ………. very catchy (not) and hence the Tui rip-off. The big unanswered question for the wine industry is whether domestic […]
Are small winegrowers going the way of the dinosaurs?
Posted in Ruminations, Wine - Written by Nga Waka on August 20, 2010 - 0 CommentsI read an article somewhere this week about the dilemma facing small contract grape-growers in Marlborough. The typical model was described as professional or farming couples in their early fifties setting up, and living on, a contract vineyard with a view to selling at 70’ish to fund retirement. The problem is that many of those […]
It ain’t rocket science; age-worthy Sauvignon Blanc
Posted in Ripostes, Wine - Written by Nga Waka on August 13, 2010 - 0 CommentsThe latest edition of DrinksBiz (August-September 2010) has an advertorial piece on p.5 about Montana, oops sorry, Pernod Ricard New Zealand, aspiring to produce a “top-shelf” Sauvignon Blanc that will age for, gasp, “a couple of years down the track.” The article is a bit coy about price but speculates that aligning with “benchmark wines […]
OI Chardonnay Tasting with Bob Campbell, 29 July 2010
Posted in Tastings, Wine - Written by Nga Waka on August 6, 2010 - 1 CommentOI hosted, and Bob Campbell MW presented, a 12-wine tasting of Chardonnay from Burgundy, New Zealand, and Australia at The French Bistro, for local winegrowers in Martinborough. My abbreviated notes follow. The tasters were asked to select a preferred wine (*) in each flight and the highest number of preferences decided the issue. Flight One […]
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Nga Waka, 41 New York Street West, Martinborough | PO Box 128, Kitchener Street, Martinborough.
Phone/Fax 0064 6 306 9832 | Email: ngawaka@ngawaka.co.nz |
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