Misha's Vineyard

Misha’s Vineyard Wines – Wine dinner at “The Cliff “ Restaurant sells out.

The Cliff restaurant at the Sentosa Resort & Spa on beautiful Sentosa Island in Singapore hosted a sell-out wine dinner featuring a menu of sensational delicacies from the chefs at The Cliff kitchen paired with the range of Misha’s Vineyard Wines. Guests from The Cliff, Rubicon Reserve Wines and Misha’s Vineyard were treated to some amazing pre-dinner hors d’oeuvres including cherry tomatoes on a small balloon of basil oil which when squeezed gave a burst of fragrant oil into the tomato! The setting – despite the rain – was very special and somewhere that everyone visiting Singapore should put on their list of places to dine.

The menu – simply put – was sensational!

MISHA’S Vineyard WINES @ THE CLIFF
2ND DECEMBER 2010

OYSTER,
lemon granite, tabasco jelly, seawater foam
Misha’s Vineyard “The Starlet”, 2009, Sauvignon Blanc

FOIE GRAS & APPLES
fizzy lemonade, apple espuma
Misha’s Vineyard “Limelight”, 2009, Riesling

TUNA
hot miso-lemon vinaigrette,
Japanese sweet potato and yuzu purée
Misha’s Vineyard “Dress Circle”, 2009, Pinot Gris

LAMB
loin and shank, fava beans, artichoke and
Sardinian fagiolo salad, yogurt textures
Misha’s Vineyard “The High Note”, 2009, Pinot Noir

CHEESE
selection of Frech cheese with preserves
Misha’s Vineyard “The Gallery”,2009, Gewurztraminer

Thank you to Restaurant Manager Kim Drew, F & B Director Adam Haywood, the whole team at The Cliff, and to Rubicon Reserve Wines for organizing such a wonderful event. We’re looking forward to going back!

Tags: central otago pinot, Food and Wine, Gewurztraminer, Limelight Riesling, Misha, mishas vineyard, Pinot Gris, pinot noir, Riesling, Rubicon Reserve, Sauvignon Blanc, Sentosa Resort & Spa, The Gallery, The High Note, Wine Distributor

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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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An update from Andy:
At the end of week two of harvest we are about half way with 54 tonnes of grapes now in the winery for processing. These have not been full work weeks as Olly carefully selects sections of the vineyard that are just right for picking and we anticipate about 6 days more picking spread over the next two weeks to complete the season. At this stage all of the Gewurtztraminer and Sauvignon Blanc is picked, we are part way throught the Riesling and have taken some sections of Pinot Noir. The remaining Riesling, all of the Pinot Gris and most of the Pinot Noir is still enjoying a warm Autumn. The canopy on the vines in most of the vineyard has held up well this year so flavours continue to develop in the fruit. Picking by taste and not by brix and acid numbers is to me a wonderful expression of art rather than science.

Our harvest crew has been fantastic and although some of our French workers have left to return home, and Ken – from China – has also moved on – we are looking forward to some great new crew joining the team next week. I’ve been working with the team each day driving tractors and running buckets – and my aches and pains are testimony to the steepness of the slopes and heavy buckets. We are really thankful to the effort our whole team, both permanent staff and casuals, have been putting in and appreciate their care and attention to picking. Our focus on quality has been applied by every member of the team.

The word from the winery is wow! They are really delighted with the quality of fruit coming in and even my limited palate is enjoying the wide range of tropical and berry flavours from the early stages of juice and ferments. The most frustrating part is now waiting until late 2011 or early 2012 before the Pinot Noir from this vintage gets released!

Tags: central otago, Gewurztraminer, Harvest, mishas vineyard, Olly Masters, Pinot Gris, pinot noir, Riesling

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Just over a month ago Rich Williams, our vineyard manager, sent in a photo of the development of various clones around the vineyard. (see 10th March blog). The response was quite overwhelming with many comments coming to us on how informative this was and how many of our blog followers would be interested in seeing later development just before we harvested.

Below is the same set of grape clones from 10th April. It really does give a wonderful perspective of the ripening process. We are now about 30% through our harvest and really excited about the quality of this year’s vintage.
Thanks to Rich for taking the time to get these samples together and do the expert photography!

Tags: central otago, central otago pinot, Gewurztraminer, Limelight Riesling, misha's, mishas vineyard, Pinot Gris, Rich Williams, Riesling

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