I just had lunch with Alan Brady, the pioneering father of the Central Otago wine region in the deep south of New Zealand’s South Island.  As Brady puts it, “...at 45 deg south it was a lonely place for grape growers when a few of us planted vines here in the early 1980s”. 
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Inspiration for this piece originates with comments from Judy Finn, Neudorf Estate, who in their recent travels to Singapore and Bali had observed, “An increasing popularity in New Zealand Pinot Noir, despite being served in an ice bucket (in Bali).” 
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When leading American wine writer, author and philosophical commentator, Matt Kramer, visited Singapore last year the first thing he asked me was to bring him up to speed on the dynamics of the market and given his time constraints, he would like to meet the one person who is influencing the market here most, “The gatekeeper to the evolution of
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Pegasus Bay Pinot Noir Prima Donna 2009 – Waipara Valley, South Island, New Zealand Also notes from a vertical tasting Having already announced Pegasus Bay Prima Donna Pinot Noir 2009 as the “Most Auspicious Wine for Chinese New Year 2012 Year of the Black Water Dragon year”, I had in fact already singled it out as my “Red Wine of
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Walter Bourke Homage - Pinot Noir Producer of the Year Must-Have Wines Best of the Lunar Year - 2010 - Year of the Tiger - Best Wine of the Year from the Cellar Quartz Reef Pinot Noir 2002 and 2003 – Central Otago, New Zealand New Zealand’s Quiet Achiever: Rudi Bauer, Quartz Reef www.quartzreef.co.nz Having long realised the most modest
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Martinborough Pinot Noir scoops top prize from 10,983 entries in world’s biggest wine show A small winery from Wairarapa which only planted its 12 hectares of vines in 1999 has triumphed over Pinot Noirs from 19 other countries including France, Italy, Australia, the USA, Chile and Germany to win the International Pinot Noir Trophy at the world’s biggest and most
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Originally intended to be part of my larger project "Australia Benchmark Chardonnay Producers" I am sure readers will not mind if I include chardonnay’s soul mate, pinot noir in this coverage of new releases from Sugarloaf Ridge.  The 2007 Sugarloaf Ridge Chardonnay is indeed a blinder, nothing short of exemplary and in my view, the benchmark for Tasmania.  In the
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Reuters Life! -  It's a big call, nailing the single wine of 2009 that was most impressionable amongst so many good bottles and an ever-increasing myriad of quality, relatively more approachable wines produced around the globe.  However, Two Paddocks Pinot Noir 2006 from Central Otago, New Zealand, is the wine that stimulated my sensory core, viscera and thoughts most in
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From a lost play by Eubulos, (c.405 BC - c.335 BC)
‘For sensible men I prepare only three kraters (large vase used to mix wine): one for health (which they drink first), the second for love and pleasure, and the third for sleep.  After the third one is drained, wise men go home. 

The fourth krater is not mine any more - it belongs to bad behaviour; the fifth is for shouting; the sixth is for rudeness and insults; the seventh is for fights; the eighth is for breaking the furniture; the ninth is for depression; the tenth is for madness and unconsciousness.’ 

The Wandering Palate - Curtis Marsh
With nearly 30 years experience in the hospitality, wine and media industries, Curtis Marsh is one of the most erudite, passionate and truly independent wine writer, commentator and presenter in Asia. 

"In many ways, the work of a critic is easy.  We risk very little yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and their selves to our judgment.  We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read. 

But the bitter truth we critics must face is that, in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is more meaningful than our criticism designating it so.  But there are times when a critic truly risks something, and that is in the discovery and defence of the new.” 

As uttered by the vitriolic restaurant critic Anton Ego, in the film “Ratatouille”, after his epiphany.