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Otago Daily Times
12-07-2025
- Business
- Otago Daily Times
A very vintage drop celebrated in London
Renowned wine writer Jancis Robinson and Gibbston Valley Wines founder Alan Brady with an about-to-be-opened bottle of 1987-vintage Central Otago wine. PHOTO: SUPPLIED 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".
Otago Daily Times
29-04-2025
- Otago Daily Times
Learning lessons from the past
A convoy of high country farmers was treated to a history of merino farming at a North Canterbury field day by Federated Farmers. About 230 farmers and industry people in 70 four-wheel-drive farm vehicles crossed the back country track on Glens of Tekoa Station through to The Grampians and Lochiel Station. Among them were politicians Chris Hipkins, Andrew Hoggard, Jo Luxton, Steve Abel, Grant McCallum and Stuart Smith. At the first stop at Glenrae Hut, Glens of Tekoa owner Beau McRae outlined early farming in the Amuri area and The Grampians owner Graham Reed spoke on more recent times. The McRae family has a long history at Glens of Tekoa, firstly taken up by William McRae, with the first house built with cob walls in 1859. Mr McRae said the Amuri area was known as the home of the merino, with 100,000 sheep sold in the yards at Red Post Corner and another 15,000 nearby in 1898. "It would have been a big day for the agents. These sheep had come down from Marlborough where there had been a drought. They had the new railway up to Culverden and apparently all the buyers came up on the train and the publican did very well that day. The reason they were coming to buy the sheep was because the merino ewes were sought after for the halfbred to fit the frozen meat trade which was just getting going." He said large landowners were known then as the Amuri wool kings. "The Amuri County Council in 1981 adopted the merino ram's head and today that could be a dairy cow. Back in 1850 the first sheep from the Wairau came down through the Hill's Gates ... and down through Molesworth ... to the Clarence and they had to burn ahead of them the 'Wild Irishman' which is what we call matagouri and the [needle-sharp golden] Spaniards." A young Theophilus Samuel Mannering was left to look after the flock for 18 months, with shorn wool stored in a cave, while they waited for a road to go through Weka Pass. "Mannering had seven plates and when they needed washing that's how he kept track of time." In the same decade, Alphonso Clifford set off with 700 wethers from Flaxbourne Station, coming unstuck when it snowed on St James. More sheep arrived when George Rutherford came from Australia, commissioning a boat for over 100 sheep, a dozen bullocks and a horse. Mr McRae said the Glens of Tekoa sheep today producing 19 micron fleece were "well nourished"with the property normally receiving 890 millimetres of rainfall - and some years double - with snow landing in the winter. "In the 1992 snow we had two feet around here for two weeks and we snow raked the ewes [out]. The wethers had to wait their turn and we had 50 people here snow raking that week. "I've always been very grateful for all those people." Grampians owner Graham Reed said most hill and high country farmers did what they did because of a love for the environment and landscape. "But it must be viable economically. In my farming career anyway it's the wool cheque which has kept us going." He said Amuri was mainly fine-wooled sheep and beef cattle 50 years ago. "Now it's mostly strong wool composites and dairy cattle largely due to the advent of irrigation. Some stayed with fine wool and a few either stayed or went back to the merino genetics getting more and better wool. "With development and fertiliser largely from the late 1970s growing lots of grass and clover came an influx of footrot and worms." He said their number one topic of conversation 30 years ago was probably footrot and trying to cure it. When the gene test by Lincoln University's Prof Jon Hickford came along, the local high country branch of Federated Farmers applied for a grant to provide gene tests to stud breeders to give farmers access to rams with good foot scores. "This prove an absolute game-changer for both our properties. Huge improvement was apparent within five years and it just started improving. "Neither property now treats footrot at all. We're now the lame ones, not the sheep." Mr Reed said there had been rapid progress in breeding much easier care merinos. "With the good demand for apparel wools largely driven by the leisure and active sportswear market hopefully there will be demand for our wools for a while yet and let's hope they're worth shearing for many years to come."
