Hawks Nest Wines of NZ: Hawks Nest Wines of NZ

Hawks Nest Wines of NZ: Hawks Nest Wines of NZ

Well, we are back in NZ and spring has sprung here. Our garden survived the mild NZ winter well and has lots of ripe goodies--onions, kale, mint, and radishes. It sure is nice to be able to experience two spring seasons each year with our commuting lifestyle between Tennessee and Matakana Valley.

Here on the local wine scene all our local growers are bottling their 05 wines and starting to release them to the public. We went to a meeting of the Matakana Wine Growers Assoc. last night and socialized with about 20 of the other vineyard owners and managers. There was a lot of new vintages to taste. I still had a bit of jet lag and so all the wines sort of ran together in my brain after a bit. Everyone is very happy with the 05 vintage and glad to finally be at the stage of actually starting to sell some and receive payment. Wine takes a while to reward you financially since it needs to sit a spell before being offered for sell.
The 06 harvest is looking to be as good as the super 05 local harvest. Our 06 volume was up a bit and the early barrel samples are doing well and tasting yummy. It looks like we are lucky to have started our wine making here in Matakana at a fortunate time where the growing and harvest weather has been perfect for two years in a row. The "old timers" in the wine business here say that is pretty unusual for Matakana.
Anyway, we look forward to "digging in the dirt" and playing in the vines. Speaking of the vines, ours look really bare now just coming out of winter. No leaves--just barenaked vines. Once I get my camera charged I will take some shots of the vines so you all can see what Hawks Nest looks like coming out of winter.
More soon

DR Jim --happy to be Downunder again.