Wine Business Monthly Article from Misha
Each month Misha writes an article for Wine Business Monthly – 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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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.
Wine Tasting at New Zealand House, London
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
There’s a wonderful video of the 2010 NZ harvest done by the talented Lisa at Lovewine. http://www.youtube.com/user/lovewinemedia The music by Gin Wigmore is fantastic. It’s the perfect accompaniment to all the harvest pictures. The video includes about 10 shots of harvest at Misha’s Vineyard – can you spot them all! The photos were all taken by Tim Hawkins – our ‘visual historian’. Hope you enjoy watching this happy video – it’s got a real ‘feel good’ factor! (And thanks again to all of our 2010 harvest team). Follow Lovewine on Twitter @lovewineNZ
New Wine Business Monthly article from Misha
Misha’s recent article in Wine Business Monthly entitled “Pinot Noir – Fashion or Fad”, received some great interest from around the world. The article is largely based around the Pinot Noir 2010 event which was held in Wellington, New Zealand in February 2010. The event attracted Pinot Noir lovers globally for a four-day celebration of all things Pinot! Pinot Noir is now New Zealand’s second most exported varietal and New Zealand is clearly positioned as producing some of the world’s best!
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On Tuesday 13th we started harvest on Misha’s Vineyard. The season has been a mixed one with cold and wet conditions in the early months slowing the early stages of development and providing a natural reduction in yield, but a warm dry finish to the season has produced some great results. Vineyards across Central Otago are reporting very good quality fruit and are looking forward to a great 2010 vintage.
Sun exposed Sav Blanc
Sav Blanc in the shade
Daniel runs buckets
Taking a break
Fun at the break
Picking or tasting?
We will be back to the field on Monday to continue with the Pinot Noir in Olly’s selected sections.
Misha & Kevin (from Jebsen Fine Wines)
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.
Desert at Cucina, Marco Polo Hotel
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!
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.
New Zealand Aromatics Masterclass in Japan
Olly presents to the masterclass
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!
Misha signs bottles at The New Zealand Bar, Tokyo
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
An update from Olly Masters – Winemaker
Well that was a busy week! Firstly we had the Pinot Noir 2010 Conference in Wellington from which I think all the New Zealand Pinot Noir producers should come away positive and pleased! The strong line-up of international media and trade provided good recognition of New Zealand’s overall wine quality and they also conveyed their views of increasing export demand for New Zealand Pinot. I then followed the Pinot event with the Nelson Aromatics Symposium where the guest speaker was Ernst Loosen, of the famous German Estate, Dr Loosen. Now suddenly, and not surprisingly, all I want to drink this week is beer!
Summer growth on the new planting - photo by Ernst Jonker
I also opened up bottles of the ‘08 Pinot Noirs as comparisons and the 09’s were very similar in inherent quality offered. The ‘08 Impromptu has opened up with some nice bramble, roast and truffle oil notes showing, the ‘08 High Note is showing lovely dark sweet fruit and a gentle palate, whilst the Verismo, although extremely impressive, is still a little locked up, but we’re still some months away from its anticipated release!
Posted on January 16th 2010
Bogart & Misha
Although we’ve only had distribution partner Negociants New Zealand for such a short time, we’re amazed at the results they have achieved so far! We have some wonderful restaurant listings in Auckland which include Bracu Restaurant, Clooney’s, La Zeppa, The Grove and Soul Bar as well as many premium retail outlets thanks to the work by Dale, Kirsten, Morven, Richard & Sheryle. And down south, Noel & AJ are working hard to ensure Misha’s Vineyard is listed all the right places as well. We love working with Negociants and we’re planning some promotional activities with them through the year.
Meanwhile in Singapore things are busy as we work with distributor, Rubicon Reserve Wines, who have us visiting most of the top hotels in Singapore over the next couple of weeks. We’re also doing a wine event for the American Association at Graze on the 21st January and hosting a Misha’s Vineyard Wine Dinner at Amici Restaurant on the 27th January. (www.amicirestaurant.com.sg)
Right after the Wine Dinner in Singapore, Andy and I depart for New Zealand to attend Pinot Noir 2010 in Wellington, then a quick trip for me to Melbourne, and then we’re at the vineyard for the rest of February.
So things are busy and we’re travelling a lot, but life is good! Misha
An update from Misha
Andy & Misha Wilkinson
After a lot of hard work, we announced 4 distributors in November this year. In Asia we announced Jebsen Fine Wines in Hong Kong, Apurevu Trading in Japan and Rubicon Reserve Wines in Singapore. And for the New Zealand domestic market, we were very pleased to announce Negociants New Zealand. This announcement was made at our Auckland media lunch on the 18th November (an auspicious date as it ends in 8!). It was a great feeling knowing we had 4 distributors in place given the tough economic climate and the plethora of brands seeking distribution across the globe. I think we’ve been able to achieve this because we have held true to our philosophy of ‘no compromises’ from the very outset of what we call “vineyard project”. Over the past eight years, we have ensured that we don’t take shortcuts in the vineyard, in the winery, with our team and now, with the appointment of our partners who will take our wines to the market.
This year for our ’09 Releases, our Auckland event had a table of 20 media for lunch at one of Auckland’s very best restaurants, The Grove . The restaurant is run by Michael & Annette Dearth and it was the second year we had worked with Michael in trying to come up with a spectacular lunch menu that would work perfectly with our wines. We were very lucky to be working with Chef Ben Bayly who created an amazing selection of dishes that certainly impressed all. We have a great partnership with The Grove and look forward to holding our 2010 Release events there next November.
In Wellington, our ’09 Release lunch was held in the private room at the Boulcott St Bistro. Again we enjoyed fantastic food and the mood in the room was just perfect and made for a thoroughly enjoyable lunch. So far the media reviews from these events have been amazing.
As a relatively young vineyard, we know there’s a long way to go, but we know we’re doing things right. We have recruited a fantastic team over the latter half of this year as moved from contract vineyard crews to our own team and now have Rich leading that team, and the lovely Cassy running our admin and operations. Over the coming year there are more milestones to hit as we increase our distribution to another 4 markets but our focus will certainly be on supporting the markets in which we’ve announced new partnerships so that together we can build the Misha’s Vineyard brand.
We look forward to working hard again in 2010.
Misha