A very vintage drop celebrated in London
The godfather of Central Otago wine, former Queenstowner Alan Brady, had waited 38 years to open one of the earliest bottles ever produced in this renowned wine region's modern history.
Last week he found the "right moment" at a barbecue in London hosted by the English distributor of his Wild Irishman label, Stephen Browett.
The 1987 Central Otago Late Harvest Rhine Riesling had been vinted specially for an international cool climate symposium on viticulture and oenology held in Auckland in '88, at which the 'grande dame' of UK wine writers, Jancis Robinson, was a speaker who also tasted the wine.
When Brady found Robinson would be attending last week's barbecue, he thought that would be the "right moment" to take the bottle out of his cellar.
Brady says the wine was made from grapes from his Gibbston Valley Wines, Queenstown's former Taramea vineyard, at Speargrass Flat, Wanaka's Rippon and Alexandra's Black Ridge.
He recalls there was very little made, and suspects his bottle was the last left.
He says those at the barbecue agreed the wine was pretty good for its age considering winemaking at the time was fairly primitive.
"Nobody at the table spat it out, it was treated with all the deference and respect a wine of that age is entitled to."
In another serendipitous twist, Brady adds Browett, who owns Farr Vintners, first came to Central Otago as a wine merchant in 1991.
He'd met Brady and taken back to London a bottle of his 1990 Gibbston Valley Pinot Noir, which Robinson had declared to be "an absolute star".
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