The funny thing with social media is you can have these online relationships with people but never ever physically meet them. Paul Pujol was one of those blokes for me. Almost every restaurateur I knew raved about the man and couldn’t believe I’d never met him. Thanks to that raving, voyeuristic portal that is Instagram, to be honest, I sort of thought I had. Turns out I hadn’t — until we had this not serious chat. There are some people you should never meet. You know the saying, “neve...
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The funny thing with social media is you can have these online relationships with people but never ever physically meet them. Paul Pujol was one of those blokes for me. Almost every restaurateur I knew raved about the man and couldn’t believe I’d never met him. Thanks to that raving, voyeuristic portal that is Instagram, to be honest, I sort of thought I had. Turns out I hadn’t — until we had this not serious chat. There are some people you should never meet. You know the saying, “neve...
The funny thing with social media is you can have these online relationships with people but never ever physically meet them. Paul Pujol was one of those blokes for me. Almost every restaurateur I knew raved about the man and couldn’t believe I’d never met him. Thanks to that raving, voyeuristic portal that is Instagram, to be honest, I sort of thought I had. Turns out I hadn’t — until we had this not serious chat. There are some people you should never meet. You know the saying, “neve...
Today on Not Serious Wine Chats, Pete and John and I sit down with Jannine Rickards (Ngāpuhi & Ngāi the Rangi) from Huntress Wines. I first met Jannine when she was the winemaker at Urlar in Gladstone, a sub-region of the Wairarapa. This part of the country clearly resonates for Jannine as Huntress shifts from a side hustle to the main act. This wonderful wahine still sources fruit and makes wine in this North Island neighbourhood. The name Huntress comes from an extremel...
I recently had the pleasure of parking up in the Cabana at Black Barn in Hawkes Bay and riffing on wine life with wine writer Elaine Chukan Brown. I say wine writer but actually they are much more than simply that. Elaine’s wine journey started in earnest in 2011 but it’s the life they had in the lead up to then that brings a richness and depth and, at times great humour, to this chat. Originally from Alaska, Elaine now calls Sonoma, California home and to spice things up they rocke...
Once again we step outside the winery and step up to the pass to grab a plate of goodness with two of Aotearoa’s finest hospo folk, Rebecca Smidt & Dariush Lolaiy of Cazador Restaurant & Deli and San Ray all day eatery. I’ve had the privilege of calling Bex and Dariush pals for a number of years now and it was a special treat to get them in the hot seat to hear how hospo life brought them together, first as teenagers and friends and then onto lovers, restaurant co-owners and the ...
Aidan Raftery hasn’t had formal training in winemaking but it seems wine has always featured somehow in some way in his life, a life that now happens to be making the stuff in a village somewhere in the Republic of Georgia. Born in the UK, he arrived in Aotearoa with his family as a young chap. Serendipity would have it that the family home was perched just around the corner from some wine writer, Master of Wine guy called Bob Campbell. With a curiosity of industrial proportions, Ai...
You might think I’ve taken a departure from the wine chats by not talking to a winemaker for today’s chat. Quite the contrary. For most of us, the restaurant setting is where we get our best exposure to wines we may not have heard of or tried before. The beverage selection is an important income earner for any hospitality joint and the restaurant is an important customer for our beverage producing pals. With such genuine simpatico it seems only right that we include those hard-...
One Tuesday morning in Tāmaki Makaurau mid August, Pete, John and I had the chance to sit down at the table at Coco’s Sound Lounge and chew the fat with Rosie Finn of Neudorf Vineyards — and she can chat. Rosie almost broke Matt Dicey’s record of such adept conversational flow that next to no editing was required. Dreamy! Matt still holds the record but Rosie was hot on his heels with only two short excerpts ending up on the cutting room floor. It was a total treat to chat to this f...
On a Sunday afternoon on Auckland’s aromatic Karangahape Road, we welcomed winemaker, Nick Mills from Rippon to the newly christened Coco’s Sound Lounge. In town, for the annual Negociants New Zealand Fine Wine Tour, we were grateful that Nick could squeeze us in for a little not serious chat and a laugh or two. This one is for the winos but it’s also for the ski hounds and the musos. I don’t use the term Original Gangster that often but in the case of Nick Mills and his family they are...
Coordinating a time to record a chat with winemaker Dave Mackintosh in Auckland isn’t so hard. He’s something of a flying winemaker, dividing his time between the Big Smoke where his wife, Caitlin and their kids live, and Hawkes Bay where he makes wine under his newly established Kenzie brand. The Mackintosh clan returned home to Aotearoa after a solid fifteen years in Australia. If you’ve spent 10 minutes in a wine bar in Melbourne you may have crossed paths with Arfion, a wine made by ...
Warning: this chat contains sulphur. Listen, we’re almost done talking about natural wine. It’s been the most debated movement in the modern wine world since screw caps filled the gap where a cork should go. It’s contentious partly because it doesn’t adhere to a specific set of rules for certification and there are such different definitions of what ‘natural’ actually means. It’s possibly also a tad divisive because it made a lot of established wineries feel like they were out of to...
Many people think Jules is a man. She’s not. Much like winemaker Kim Crawford isn’t a woman. One thing Jules Taylor most definitely is, is a fierce maker of the wines. She’s got the gongs to prove it including the title of Gourmet Traveller Wine New Zealand Winemaker of the Year 2021.Unlike most of the winemakers working in Marlborough, Jules was born and raised in Blenheim. Her Mum and Dad still live there and it’s where Jules and George have raised their kids. It’s safe to say the roo...
Ben Leen is the winemaker at Amisfield winery in Central Otago but it is his side project, Alpine Wine Co. that we really wanted to talk about. Ben’s hands-on, small batch production is matched with his big energy sales skills. He’s a winemaker who loves showing his wine and that enthusiasm is contagious which is why you’ll find his wines poured at some top places like Hello Beasty or Salty Pidgin when stocks allow. It's fair to say that if wine had its own cupid, that little arche...
We’d love you to meet Helen Masters, winemaker at the iconic Ata Rangi Martinborough. Boy can she knock out a great tasting glass of vino. On a grey, Auckland Saturday morning, Helen arrived at our K Road podcast studio wearing a NY Yankees cap. She explained she’d lost her hairbrush somewhere during a just-completed Australian sales trip and needed the cap to quell an unruly doo. We weren’t overly fussed. This woman is such a legend she could have arrived in her jimjams and we wou...
Tell you what, Matt Dicey has to be one of the nicest dudes in the biz. He’s relaxed. He likes a laugh but is a veritable book of knowledge when it comes to the craft of winemaking and his enthusiasm for the process hasn’t even slightly waned after 30 years of turning grape juice into wine. Many of you will know him from his days as the Mt Difficulty winemaker. He was driving that bus for 22 years and almost 80% of the wine produced by the brand was sold here in Aotearoa so it stands to ...
The funny thing with social media is you can have these online relationships with people but never ever physically meet them. Paul Pujol was one of those blokes for me. Almost every restaurateur I knew raved about the man and couldn’t believe I’d never met him. Thanks to that raving, voyeuristic portal that is Instagram, to be honest, I sort of thought I had. Turns out I hadn’t — until we had this not serious chat. There are some people you should never meet. You know the saying, “neve...
