Charmian Smith

How long should fresh fruit last? Charmian Smith asks around.

What a pleasure it was to taste some of the dozen or so chardonnays for this column. Some people overlook chardonnay in favour of more sexy varieties such as pinot gris or sauvignon blanc, and certainly there is a lot of boring chardonnay out there, but, like the girl in the nursery rhyme, when they are good they can be very very good.

At a University of Otago and Food Otago function last week, some university departments explained the services they were able to provide to local food producers and manufacturers.

Truffles are a secretive underground crop that take time to develop, but when a ripe one is harvested, its aroma lingers - a little like the New Zealand truffle industry itself, which is celebrating 20 years. Charmian Smith talks to Dr Ian Hall, who started it all.

Fine pinot noir has many personas that depend on where it comes from and who makes it.

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Pinot Gris can be wonderful, as some of those that turned up for this tasting were.

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Good chardonnay may be delicious in the first year or two after it's bottled, but give it another couple of years bottle age and it can develop even more charm, mellowness and complexity that keep you coming back for another sip.

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Chardonnay, like most good wines, can develop with time.

These days when it is said the average life of a restaurant is about two years, it is good to see Michael and Mari-Anne Coughlin celebrating 16 years at their acclaimed Dunedin restaurant, Bell Pepper Blues.

Pinot noir is rarely among the good-value wines - and "good value" in Central Otago terms usually means between $25 and $30! So it's great to find Pick and Shovel, a very drinkable Central Otago Pinot for about $20 in New World supermarkets.

The 15 chardonnays in this tasting ranged from the sublime - Neudorf's long-lived, understated but beautifully balanced Moutere Chardonnay 2007 ($55 ) - to several boring wines that tasted of minimal fruit with a hint of cardboard at the bottom end of the price range - cheap and only partly cheerful.

Crisp and refreshing with a hint of honeydew melon, passionfruit and perhaps freshly cut grass or sun-heated greywacke, sauvignon blanc is a delicious summer wine.