I just had lunch with Alan Brady, the pioneering father of the Central Otago wine region in the deep south of New Zealand’s South Island. As Brady puts it, “…at 45 deg south it was a lonely place for grape growers when a few of us planted vines here in the early 1980s”. Read More >

Our Wandering Palate Melbourne correspondent, Matthew Wilson, goes mushroom hunting down on the Mornington Peninsula armed with a bucket load of local pinot noir. Read More >

Our Shanghai correspondent, Mick Knuppel, resurfaces and reports on the TarraWarra Estate Pinot Noir Australasia Duck Run Read More >

Dexter is the eponymous label of Tod and Debbie Dexter, based at Merricks North on the Mornington Peninsula. The vineyard was established in 1987. Now just over 7 hectares, it’s planted to Chardonnay and Pinot noir in roughly equal proportions. The vine age for the Chardonnay averages 20 years and the Pinot 15 years. Read More >

Not sure where to start with this article, given it’s about 10 years overdue! Actually, I had begun a piece on their outstanding cellar door restaurant and contemporary art museum, which we went to last year and had a fabulous lunch; but a computer meltdown erased both prose and pictures, which is killing me. Read More >

3 Individual Vineyard Cuvees from the 2009 Vintage:

Morrison Vineyard – Lowburn

Muirkirk Pinot Noir – Bannockburn

Stevens Vineyard – Gibbston Read More >

Is it possible that we may have come across an indicator of who produces the most stylish and elegant pinot noirs – by the very shirt that the vignerons wears? Read More >

Julian Colville, proprietor of Sugarloaf Ridge rushed through Singapore recently, on-route to the Cool-Climate Conference in Tasmania. Yes, their vineyard is in Tasmania but career commitments have taken the family to Amsterdam for the present. Read More >

When leading American wine writer, author and philosophical commentator, Matt Kramer, visited Singapore last year the first thing he asked me was to bring him up to speed on the dynamics of the market and given his time constraints, he would like to meet the one person who is influencing the market here most, “The gatekeeper to the evolution of wines styles and trends, the evangelist of the wine culture, the inspirer of thirst.” Read More >

Pegasus Bay Pinot Noir Prima Donna 2009 – Waipara Valley, South Island, New Zealand

Also notes from a vertical tasting

Having already announced Pegasus Bay Prima Donna Pinot Noir 2009 as the “Most Auspicious Wine for Chinese New Year 2012 Year of the Black Water Dragon year”, I had in fact already singled it out as my “Red Wine of the Year”, so impressed by its sheer profoundness and energy, yet harmonious elegance. Read More >