Misha's Vineyard

Misha and Andy recently had the pleasure of training almost 50 of the staff at Singapore’s Marina Bay Sands on New Zealand wines, Central Otago region and on our Misha’s Vineyard Pinot Noir. “It is always such a great experience to be able to talk directly to the staff who will be recommending and pouring the wines to guests in great establishments like this $6.5b casino, restaurant, bar and entertainment complex” said Misha.

Misha’s Vineyard Pinot Noir and Sauvignon Blanc are served at the Premier Lounge – where the high rollers of the world come to gamble huge sums. A recent Channel News Asia special program on the planning and the development of Marina Bay Sands called “Paradise in the Sky”, showed Christine Kaelbel-Sheares, Director of Piaza, VIP F & B introducing the features of the premier lounge and the selection of premium wines. This program provided great exposure to the Misha’s brand and New Zealand Pinot Noir across Asia. Misha’s Vineyard wines are also served in several other fantastic bars and restaurants in the complex.

This staff training session at the Marina Bay Sands follows similar sessions done at several other premium hotels and restaurants across Asia where Misha and Andy have been able to take management, bar and serving staff through a one hour training program which introduces the uniqueness of New Zealand wines, provides some background on the region of Central Otago, tells the stories of Misha’s Vineyard and then goes through a tasting of the wines. Much of the training material is supplied by New Zealand Winegrowers and shows both the focus on quality in New Zealand as well as the iconic environment that the wines are produced in. “You can taste New Zealand’s spectacular scenery and pure air in the wines” says Andy in his introduction of the presentation.

“The reception to this training has been wonderful” says Misha. “All of the places where we have conducted training have asked if we can come back on a regular basis to provide follow on training to new staff”.

Tags: Andy Wilkinson, central otago, central otago pinot, Central Otago Pinot Noir, Marina Bay Sands, Misha, Misha Wilkinson, mishas vineyard, new zealand wine, New Zealand Winegrowers, pinot noir

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Wine Business Magazine Article by Misha
In the article for the June edition of Australia’s Wine Business Magazine, titled New Thinking for New Brands, Misha shares some of her ideas and thoughts on building a vineyard brand from New Zealand.

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Tags: central otago, Central Otago Pinot Noir, Misha Wilkinson, mishas vineyard, WBM, wine Business Magazine, Wine Business Monthly

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Wine Business Magazine Article from Misha
Each month Misha writes an article for Wine Business Magazine – the Australian wine trade magazine. For May the article was titled Betting on the Singapore Market and focuses on the opportunities for New Zealand Wine in Singapore.

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Tags: Misha, Misha Wilkinson, mishas vineyard, Wine Business Monthly

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Establishing a Misha’s Vineyard footprint in key parts of the world is the top priority this year for the sales and marketing department (aka Andy and me!). We have just announced our second distributor in Australia, Estate Wine Distributors. We’re absolutely delighted because Peter Papanikitas has an experienced team who are focussed on the restaurant sector in Sydney, Canberra, Brisbane, and Cairns. And we have completed our first shipment to South Korea through our agent there and the wine will go into restaurants. We’re happy to have been able appoint seven distributors in seven markets and hoping to increase that number by the end of the year.

We have just spent a week in the UK and attended the New Zealand Summer New Release Tasting at NZ House on the Haymarket. The two consecutive trade tasting days were held in the Penthouse of New Zealand house which had panoramic views across London. It was a spectacular place for a wine tasting and our wines received lots of positive comments. We also met with potential distributors and visited a few great dining spots including The Providores (www.theprovidores.co.uk/ and The Modern Pantry www.themodernpantry.co.uk/)
– and oddly enough they both have NZ-focussed wine lists! Also went to a very fab restaurant that’s casual but cool just near Charring Cross called Terroirs (www.terroirswinebar.com/). I had an amazing dish of braised rabbit on polenta and washed it down with 2007 Barbera ‘Ronco Malo’ produced by Vittorio Bera from Piemonte – fab!

Some really exciting news is that three of our wines have been selected for the 2010 Tri Nations Wine Challenge this year: Misha’s Vineyard Limelight Riesling 2009, Misha’s Vineyard Dress Circle Pinot Gris 2009 and Misha’s Vineyard Verismo Pinot Noir 2008. The latter is our Reserve Pinot which we have just released so it’s very flattering that it’s been chosen as one of the top Pinot Noirs to represent New Zealand competing against the best of Australia and South Africa.

Early in July I’m off to Tokyo for just a few days for the NZ Trade Tasting event at the Ritz Carlton along with some trade activities including a wine tasting at the glamorous Isetan store in Shinjuku which has the most beautiful fine wine section that includes a gated cellar! And then we’re off to the US to attend a fantastic event called the International Pinot Noir Celebration and to hopefully find a distributor for our wines there. Will keep you posted!

Misha

Tags: Estate Wine Distributors, Misha, Misha Wilkinson, mishas vineyard, new zealand wine, Pinot Gris, pinot noir, The Modern Pantry, The Providores, Tri Nations Wine, Verismo, Wine Distributor

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Wine Business Magazine Article from Misha
This article analyzes New Zealand’s position in the green stakes – which happens to be leaps and bounds over other markets, including Australia. New Zealand has an imperative to be ‘green’ – it has a moral imperative in order to live up to perceptions that New Zealand already holds as a clean green nation, and also it now has an imperative by industry body New Zealand Winegrowers who have prescribed all vineyards in New Zealand must have a ‘a green bill of health’!

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Tags: Misha Wilkinson, mishas vineyard, Wine Business Monthly

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Andy, Olly and I all met up in Hong Kong airport having been on different flights but all arriving around the same time and then headed to our hotel in Causeway Bay. The next day was a Sunday so we decided to go to Stanley for shopping and sight-seeing. We took the bus which is a pretty interesting trip as it winds around the narrow streets of the island. That evening we had dinner at Jumbo’s in Aberdeen (something that I had never done in spite of many trips to Hong Kong over the past 20 years) and just the three of us dined on an entire Peking duck – delicious!

Our new distributor in Hong Kong, Jebsen Fine Wine, organised an amazing schedule for us. The first day started with training and a tasting for the whole Jebsen team and then an afternoon of retail store visits and then finishing with a trade dinner at Nicholini’s restaurant at the Conrad Hotel.

Over the course of the next two days we met with many of Hong Kong’s five star hotels and top restaurants and did product training at one of the top hotels who have already taken on Misha’s Vineyard wines. There was a great reaction the wines (especially the Pinot Noir) and you’ll soon see our wines in many key places in Hong Kong.

The schedule for the final day included a media lunch at Cucina at the Marco Polo Hotel. This restaurant has a spectacular location overlooking Hong Kong harbour, on the Kowloon side, and it happened to be a perfect day to enjoy the view! We had a marvellous attendance at the lunch thanks to the brilliant organisation by Florence Luk, who does PR & Marketing for Jebsen (and happens to be an amazing photographer as well!). The highlight of the lunch was the dessert which was created by Pastry Chef Ryan Zimmer, which we didn’t try to match with any wine. After admiring it for some time, we ate it and it was even more delicious than it looked! Ryan described it as “Strawberry rose capsule with greek yoghurt cheesecake, balsamic gelato, candied pistachio, honey, & cinnamon brioche”.

Later in the day we went to Rare & Fine Wines and held a wine tasting in their shop and then headed back to Hong Kong island for a customer dinner which was also hosted by Rare & Fine Wines at the Hong Kong Banker’s Club.

This dinner had some of the most delicious Chinese food I’ve ever eaten and each course was beautifully matched with one of our wines. One of the best matches was actually the chicken livers and The Gallery Gewürztraminer!

We’re so lucky to be working with Jebsen Fine Wines in Hong Kong. We may be their smallest vineyard but I think we’re their most enthusiastic! Thanks to Gavin, Donny, Kevin, Bonnie and the entire sales team for looking after us so well. We’ll be back soon!

Tags: Andy Wilkinson, Conrad Hotel, Cucina, Gewurztraminer, Hong Kong, Hong Kong Banker’s Club, Jebsen Fine Wines, Misha, Misha Wilkinson, mishas vineyard, Nicholini’s restaurant, Olly Masters, Rare and Fine Wines, Ryan Zimmer, The Marco Polo Hotel

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In March Olly and I went to Tokyo. It was Olly’s first trip to Tokyo but I’ve been there many times before and just love it. We went there to spend some time with our distributor (Apurevu Trading), present a New Zealand Aromatics Masterclass for sommeliers, talk to some of the key wine media and to accompany our distributor on some key trade visits.

The New Zealand Aromatics Masterclass was a big success with many sommeliers and media attending. Hiroyuki Seino, sommelier from Apicius, helped Olly with the seminar providing a lot of information particularly about the ‘Old World’ wines that we compared with our Misha’s Vineyard examples. Seino-san also had good knowledge of New Zealand through his trip there in February, which included a visit to Misha’s Vineyard of course!

During our time in Tokyo Olly and I also met lots of the key wine media and visited some cool restaurants and bars to present our wines.

On the last evening I went to Aotea Rangi, a restaurant who now carries our range of wines, and offered samples of our wine to the regulars who were dining that evening and met some lovely expats, Judy, Kiren & Denise, who all loved the wines and gave us some great tips for where we should try and get the wines listed. Meanwhile Olly went to the NZ Bar (which is also a restaurant) in Bunkyo-ku where the only wine being served during the evening was Misha’s Vineyard!

I joined Olly at NZ Bar later in the evening and we had a wonderful time with the many guests who came to the bar especially to try the wines. I didn’t realise Japanese could drink so much! We then had fun signing bottles for people and then signing the winemaker’s wall to mark our visit! Please visit the NZ Bar Blog

Tags: Apurevu, Aromatic wines, Masterclass, Misha, Misha Wilkinson, misha's, mishas vineyard, Olly Masters, The New Zealand Bar, Tokyo wine

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On the 22nd February, following an all-day company strategy meeting, we had a ‘Tapas and Tasting’ at The Lazy Dog in Queensberry – which is our virtual cellar door!

This was the first time that Dean and Diana (owners of The Lazy Dog) had held a ‘wine dinner’ and we were a little worried about getting a crowd on a Monday night. We didn’t need to worry, the dinner sold out and we had a waiting list and we’re already planning to do another one!

Dean did a superb job in preparing 8 courses which were perfectly matched with the 8 wines we presented during the evening. Diana called the menu a “Taste Sensations” menu matching the antipasto plate to our off-dry Lyric Riesling, the hot-smoked salmon to our medium-dry Limelight Riesling (which was a sublime combination), and the Kassler Pork loin and Risotto with our Dress Circle Pinot Gris.

Following that the spicy Mussels were served with The Gallery Gewurztraminer, Baked Camembert with the Audition ’07 Pinot Noir, and then Lamb Cutlets with The High Note ’08 Pinot Noir. In addition to all of that, we started the evening with a Sauvignon Blanc and some rosemary garlic bread and finished the evening with Dean’s home preserved apricots and a choice of Gewürtz or Riesling. Absolutely no one went home hungry!

Thanks to everyone who came to our wine dinner and a big thanks to The Lazy Dog for their enthusiasm and support of Misha’s Vineyard.

Tags: Gewurztraminer, Limelight Riesling, Lyric, Misha Wilkinson, Olly Masters, Riesling, Sauvignon Blanc, The Gallery, The High Note, The Lazy Dog

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