All in Written Content
Monsieur de la Riviere stubbed out his Gitanes and polished off his pastis as the sun glinted off the Mediterranean - its light piercing through the stench of last night's dinners that had washed out onto the streets from the innumerable restaurants that adorned the dock front of Marseille.
It's a cool afternoon in late spring, and as the sound of leather on willow rings out around the village green, WG hoists a short, leg side delivery to deep on, and tea is taken early.
It is 1784 and Captain Orange Beard is thirsty. He has led a successful campaign of tyranny on the high seas for nigh on seven months, scuttling no less than five schooners, two naval frigates and one galleon, and although his sloop sails low in the sea thanks to a wealth of ill gotten gains, what he really wants is a drink!
The lush rolling hills of Pajottenland, southwest of Brussels in Flanders, is a picture perfect setting befitting any classic landscape oil painting of the 1800s. Chequered patches of farmland work their way across this fertile site - but it’s not just the earth here that is rich with life, the air is too.
I saw this beer and couldn’t help but think of the Belgian surrealist artist René Magritte. Do you know the chap? He painted some fabulous stuff in the 1920s and 30s and one of his most famous was a picture of a pipe, plain and simple, with the inscription - ceci n’est pas une pipe written below and which translates into 'this is not a pipe'.
Frankie Mcphail loves whiskey. That said, she’s currently having a rather serious affair with gin.
When Steve Skinner started at Elephant Hill back in 2006, his first move was to rip out the struggling Bordeaux varieties at the Te Awanga site and set in motion the acquisition of new vineyards in the Bridge Pa and Gimblett Gravels districts. This was the beginning of a a master plan to diversify in every which way possible, drawing the best from the complexities of Hawke’s Bay's sub-regions, allowing Steve to make the best wines he can.
Having recently tasted our way through a sumptuous lineup of John Kavanagh’s wines at an upstairs tasting at Regional Wines - it was with bated breath that we descended over the hills towards Te Kairanga…
It was a pugilistic battle until the bitter sweet end. Seven heavyweight whiskies going toe to toe until only one was left standing. Unrelenting blow after blow of port, PX and sherry leaving us dazed confused, heady and happy.
John Kavanagh obviously had a plan when he took over the reins at Te Kairanga in 2012, and It didn't take him long to find his feet. He's now strapped on the track shoes and is going for gold each vintage, capping a run of consecutive wins at the Decanter World Wine Awards with the ultimate accolade - Best in Show for his 2017 John Martin Pinot Noir.
Sunday lunch at Simpson’s in the Strand had gone on longer than expected, and as Lord Eden unfastened the top button of his trousers and reclined into the plush leather upholstery…
The celestial being was over a thousand leagues tall, and as he strode the universe, his arm trailed through an asteroid field offering an unexpected handful or rare metals, ore and inorganic debris.
Having angered the whisky gods with a lineup of no age statement single malts at the previous tasting, it was time to atone, and thus we found ourselves, once again, before the sacrificial altar at the chapel of Bruce McLaren, with seven single casks from BenRiach.
For $110 you'd probably expect a platter of haggis, neeps and tatties to accompany your whisky tasting, but on this occasion, it was the price that secured a seat at the table with the brown and gold Gods of whisky - whisky that most of us mere mortals will never get to taste.
It’s not every day you get to taste older vintages from one of New Zealand’s most iconic and pioneering wineries, but last month, twenty lucky Regional Wines customers were given a real treat courtesy of chief winemaker Wilco Lam from Dry River, who took us through five varietal flights comparing older and current vintages.
