Charmian Smith

SYRAH/SHIRAZ from coolish areas such as Hawkes Bay or Victoria can be elegant with lovely fruit expression, quite different from the bigger jammy warm-climate reds from Australia. 

Among the guests at the Central Otago Pinot Noir Celebration recently were a bevy of Asian wine writers, reflecting the growth of New Zealand wine exports there. Charmian Smith talks to Jeanie Cho Lee from Hong Kong about wine and Asian food. 

Some people wonder how a wine made from grapes can have nutty, creamy or toasty characters, but these are from winemaking techniques. Leaving wine on lees (sediment) often gives nuttiness; malolactic fermentation changes malic acid to lactic acid and can give asuggestion of cream or butter; barrels in which wine is fermented or matured can be toastedon the inside.

It was a pleasure tasting these rieslings. Most are delicious (some are even better the next day) and several are excellent value.

This week, Luz Mery Johnstone from Colombia shows us how to make sopa de arena (soup with oats).

Good reds will mellow over a year or two, the initially overt fruit integrating with oak influences and other savoury flavours. Several classy New Zealand wines in this tasting are released with a few years bottle age when they are drinking well but they will continue to develop.

John Buck, one of the leading luminaries of New Zealand wine, and owner of Te Mata Estate in Hawkes Bay, was in Dunedin last week hosting the annual Te Mata Showcase, the release of its premium wines, and a mini vertical tasting of three vintages of its flagship cabernet merlots, Awatea and Coleraine.

Pinot noir may be "a minx of a vine" as British wine writer Jancis Robinson says, but it's enormously popular, even though it's not cheap. However it goes well with food, is oftencharming and fascinates those who get hooked on the pinot "bug."

Viognier and gewurztraminer are uncommon varieties, but both are rich, mouthfilling whites.

With evenings closing in since the end of daylight saving and leaves changing colour, Charmian Smith turns her thoughts towards autumn.

A delicious bunch of pinots, mostly from Central Otago, turned up for this tasting. A couple show how charming wines from Gibbston can be, and some '08s show how an extra year's bottleage can mellow the wine.

Flavours of home is a series of recipes from around the world cooked by people at home in Otago. They are accompanied by a video on the ODT website so you can see how the dish is made. This week Michal Rozenberg, from Slovakia, shows us how to make Hungarian goulash.