The Vineyard nest door!!!!

The nice thing about Matakana Valley is that it is so small and made up of very friendly people. There are not many Americans around but those that are here fit in well. Our very closest neigbouring vineyard is called Heron's Flight and is owned by a lovely couple from Calif. who settled her way back around 1990. David Hoskins and his wife Mary were pioneers in growing grapes in Matakana and reciently opened a lovely modern cafe to compliment their vineyard. They are famous for their good Italian wine and food in their new well sited cafe and wine education center just a half mile from our front gate. A great place to sit and view the valley while sampling good food and wine.

It seems that good happenings in life are often from random events. A doctor friend of ours back in Nashville emailed me a few months ago to say that a daughter of a friend of theirs was wanting to work and live in NZ. In Feb, I got to meet Courtney Battle (that young lady) when she first ventured to our little Valley and was able to introduce her to David at our Saturday morning Matakana Farmers Market. Now, things have worked out well for all and Courtney is working at Heron's Flight and "learing the business of wine and food" from an expert with years of experience. They even speak the same brand of English!!! Everyone seems to benefit and now we have another Nashvillian living in Matakana!!!! It is a small world.


The photo shows David and Courtney at the door of Heron's flight cafe this Sunday. They both have a nice smile as they should. Courtney has a neat informative job in NZ and David has a attractive young American lady with a degree in events planning fresh off the boat so to say and enthusiastic to work and learn. (actually Courtney really is fresh off the boat as she sailed in a small boat accross the Pacific to arrive in NZ--not the usual arrival method for Americans for sure!!!)

I went to Heron's Flight on Sun to see their enteresting set up to sell wine straight from the tank into used bottles brought in by customers. This was the second time that David has set up a day to offer the public the chance to come in and "pour your own" wine so to say. We thought it was a neat idea and a fun way to both sell wine and meet people. It was a very good deal for the wine drinkers as they got good red wine for only $12 a bottle and clearly "fresh out of the pot"
The one photo shows their roadside sign with the announcement and the other shot is of David's son demonstating the method of help yourself wine. Kudos to you David and Mary for the idea. I just wish I could copy it!!!! We have no roadside sales or license so unfortunately we can't offer "take a way, do it yourself wine"

Sandra and I are off to the states in the AM so the next post will be from Nashville once we get over jet lag. We leave NZ with a clear blue sky and lovely soft surf down at the beach at the bottom of our hilll. (I am looking at the waves as I type this!!)

More soon;

Dr JIm and Miss Sandra

A GREAT NZ WINE BLOG SITE

GOOD MORNING!!!!

Every morning (well, that is most mornings to be accurate) I get up and check my email, then Google News to see what's up in the world, and finally I go to Sue Courtney's neat blog on NZ Wines at the link below. I have mentioned Sue before and even encluded one of her in depth writings on the history of NZ wines on this blog in the past.. Sue has a very informative post EVERY day on NZ wines or wine related information. So, if you want to really be up to date on NZ wines you should bookmark her "Blog of vinous ramblings" --(even the name is cute). She even adds a few jokes occasionally like this latest one that she saw in the Auckland main daily paper-The NZ Herald.

"Had to laugh on reading the humor column Sideswipe in this morning's NZ Herald. It went something like this.

A foreign language couple from Europe, only in the country for three weeks, asked the host what to bring to a party they had been invited to.
"Oh, sauvignon blanc would be nice," said the host to the husband of the European couple.
"What kind of party is it," exclaimed the wife when her husband said he was asked to bring along 'seven young blondes'. ( From Sue Courtney blog of March 13th, 2008)

Anyways I due suggest you visit the links below as Sue really gets around to taste a lot of NZ wine and give good reviews of the wines as well as general wine related information about the wine industry here in NZ. She also edits the wine of the week site as well which is really the same home page as her blog but with tons of news on all things wine in NZ. So check both of these urls out soon and pass on the links to others with interest in NZ wines.

http://www.wineoftheweek.com/blog/index.htm

http:// www.wineoftheweek.com

More Soon from the states as we go back to Nashville for about 5 weeks on March 18th.

Dr Jim and Miss Sandra

How to find a rare wine on line

If you are like me you occasionally want to get a really unusual and hard to find wine. So, what do you do besides call your local favorate store and ask them to get it for you? Well, you can actually go on line and do a seach at wine-searcher.com. Did you know that one of the world's most popular wine websites is based in New Zealand? . It's a site called www.wine-searcher.com, and it's loved by wine buyers throughout the world but particularly by collectors in the USA and the UK. But it may surprise many people that it is a New Zealand operation.

.

It is free for a store to list on the website and users can dial up www.winesearcher.com and look up for free where they can buy a certain wine. So how does www.wine-searcher.com make money?

They make their money from users who buy the 'Pro Version', at US$29.95. This version provides much more information and more 'hits' and pricing information for a searched wine. There are many other 'Pro Version' features including 'alerts' if a sought after wine suddenly becomes available. Retailers can also advertise.

It's obviously working because www.wine-searcher.com has over 10,000 subscribers. The site attracts over half a million visitors each month with over 55 million page views each year. Revenue for 2007 is expected to exceed $2million.

"We are a profitable, debt fee company with positive cash flow from our operations," says Martin. Independent statistics show that www.wine-searcher.com is well ahead of competing sites, www.winezap.com and www.cellartracker.com.

Sixty percent of the users are from the USA. The UK, with almost 14% of users, is in second place. New Zealand users don't even figure in the Top Ten user countries.

"We'd like to increase our New Zealand usage considerably," says Martin Brown the founder. "The world knows about us but many kiwis don't".

Dial up www.wine-searcher.com, type in your favourite wine into 'Wine Name', add a vintage if you wish, and see what results you get.

(Incidentally, the most searched for wine is Chateau Margaux.)

Finally, I got this cute one below by email last week and wanted to pass it on to readers in my age group (64+!!!) Seems very appropriate these days!!!!!!

More soon; Dr Jim

New Wine for Seniors
California vintners in the Napa Valley area, which primarily produce Pinot Blanc, Pinot Noir and Pinot Grigio wines, have developed a new hybrid grape that acts as an anti-diuretic.
It is expected to reduce the number of trips older people have to make to the bathroom during the night.

The new wine will be marketed as

Pi No More

(I HEARD IT THROUGH THE GRAPEVINE)

Nashville Wine Press Article

IF you live in Nashville and buy much wine you will see the Nashville Wine Press in stores. The editor, Jimmy Collins, and his staff produce a very first rate and interesting journal in my opinion. Also, the price is right as it is free and a new edition comes out every two months. The edition that is now in stores has a nice intereview by Jimmy Collins with me. He did a good job of writing the article about Hawks Nest and I thought that readers of this blog who are NOT in Nashville might like to get some background on Hawks Nest and our journey into wine from medicine. So, here is that online version of the article that was in the recent NWP. Hope you learn a bit about me that you might not have known.

More Soon;

Dr JIM


Nashville Wine Press People You Oughta Know
Hawks Nest Vineyard-Dr. Jim Daniell


by Jimmy Collins


Hawks Nest Vineyard, on the main road that leads to Matakana Valley, New Zealand, is the other side of the world from Middle Tennessee. But thanks to Dr. Jim Daniell, it’s never been closer. Dr. Daniell, born and raised in Tennessee, never imagined he would own a winery—let alone in New Zealand. But as his story reveals, sometimes life is serendipitous.

After attending medical school in Memphis, Dr. Daniell served in the military stationed in Wiesbaden, Germany. It was there he was introduced to wine, not even knowing how fate was beginning to play its role. After selling his practice to his younger partner over 6 years ago, he jokingly refers to his career as a physician as “his past life.” “I was very active around 1980 in developing lasers through a surgical telescope that is called a laparoscope,” he explains. “I was the first person in America to clinically use a laser through the laparoscope which was great for my medical career and it got me invited all over the world—including New Zealand.” Semi-retiring in 1998, the Daniell family settled on New Zealand. “There is no crime or poverty. It’s clean, green, has good seafood and entertainment, and is devoid of extreme cold or hot weather. That, my friend, is New Zealand,” declares Dr. Daniell proudly.

Hawks Nest Vineyard was initially created for tax purposes. The Daniells were running a successful fruit orchard in Matakana and with taxes at 51.5%, they needed to invest in something that would take some time to be profitable. “We had four acres of vacant land that, when tested, seemed to be suitable terrain for Cabernet Franc and Malbec.” Dr. Daniell began planting in 2001 and remarks, “Our plan was to sell the grapes to our neighbor and have him make some wine for us in New Zealand, never thinking of exporting to the U.S.” Once again, the hands of fate intervened. John Worth, who had studied at the best wine school in Australia and worked in Bordeaux, France, suddenly showed up at the Daniell’s door. “He saw our grapes and wanted to make a demonstration wine. We asked what it cost and he said it would not cost us a thing except for the barrels. I should have asked what barrels cost,” quipped Dr. Daniell. At the time, a new French oak barrel cost approximately $1300. They produced two hundred cases of wine and were extremely satisfied with the results.

Robert Lipman of Lipman Bros., Inc. was traveling to New Zealand and decided to stop at Hawks Nest to taste the 2004 barrel samples. Impressed with the results and knowing his portfolio did not contain Bordeaux-style wine from New Zealand, Mr. Lipman was the catalyst to bring Hawks Nest to Tennessee—providential to say the least.

So what are the results? “The Orchard Block Red is a blend that creates some good, but not too high, tannins and a softness and what I think is a really good wine—but I’m biased,” states Dr. Daniell. Actually, two of New Zealand’s most well respected wine writers concur, giving stellar reviews of Hawks Nest. One in particular, Michael Cooper, the “Robert Parker of New Zealand,” gave the Orchard Block Red four stars out of five. This is no small feat as history has shown that Mr. Cooper only gives out four stars eight percent of the time to New Zealand wines.

The 2005 Orchard Block Red is completely sold out and the 2006 has just been released—in screw-cap form. Primary locations to purchase it are The Wine Shoppe at Green Hills, West Meade Wine and Liquor Mart, Grapevine Wine and Spirits, Grand Cru, Woodland Wine Merchants, and Red Dog Wine and Spirits. If your wine store does not carry it, they can contact Lipman Brothers directly to inquire about ordering some.

Life now for the Daniell family involves traveling across the Pacific six times a year and working two harvests—one for grapes at the end of March and early April (this is New Zealand, remember) and the second for their fruit, whose harvest carries into May and early June. Although semi-retired, Dr. Daniell still practices in Nashville periodically throughout the year. There often are wine dinners and bottle signings when he is here in town, so if you happen to run into him, just consider it serendipitous.

First Matakana Wine Festival

We had our first annual Matakana Wine and food festival here in our little valley. The only hitch was the rainy weather. We were happy about the rain ourselves as our water tanks were low but it sure cut down late minute attendance from Auckland. The event was from 10:30-6:30 ( yes, a long day in our booth for sure). People were there when the gates opened and all seemed to have a good time.

We printed up some shirts at the last minute that were a hit with everyone. The black shirt and the phrase on the back can be seen in the one photo. We had 8 people out selling away from our booth using plastic buckets who were wearing our shirts and selling wine. Some of the ladies said they got a few "squeezes" over the day as the back of the shirt suggested!!!!

We also sold Scarborough Fair Chocolate and found that giving free samples led to a lot of wine sales!!!! You can see the choc sitting on the bar in the one photo-that is Mike our wine maker holding up the bottle of bubbly that he produced and sold as well. The other photo shows Sandra and I with our NUMBER ONE SALESMAN--Bart Blommaaert who owns the best B and B in Auckland called Ascot Parnell. We stayed with Bart and his lovely wife, Therese, long ago when we first came to NZ and have become good friends. Bart could sell a frig to an Eskimo!!!!

The final photo shows me loading up our truck at the end of the day with our unsold wine. For those of you in NZ who missed the day, you need to put it on your events calander for the Jan-Feb summer of 2009 as it will be held before school starts next year and on a Sat. and not a Sun as this last week. Admission will also be lower next year. Stay tuned for info on that event in a few months!!

So, now we just watch the grapes grow and sit back and rest for a bit as we are all caught up at the vineyard as we prepare for our 08 harvest in about a month.
More soon.

Dr Jim and Miss Sandra