When the pickers arrived at the Gane’s vineyard on the morning of April 4th 2008, they were imagining a steady but not-too-demanding day of work, punctuated by regular rest stop picnics involving Raewyn Gane’s legendary scones. But when the winery announced that any grapes still hanging after 4.30pm would be left behind, the shape of their day changed dramatically. Nev Gane (viti legend and all round good guy) was overheard saying “We can’t stop, we can’t stop!”, as Raewyn delivered buttered-and-jammed scones up and down the rows of vines to the pickers as they worked.
It was a frenzied finish to a stressful season. Many sauvignon blanc growers in the area had ended up with ‘grubby’ crops – the expression used to describe grapes infected by botrytis – the Gane’s had worked hard all season to keep their fruit in good order and were not about to let their beautiful grapes go to waste simply because they’d run out of picking time.
The pickers worked non-stop for seven hours, powered by Raewyn’s scones and the promise of ‘a bit of a party’ at the end of the day. The power of Raewyn’s Scones are a mysterious and magical thing resulting in not a single grape being left behind.
The huge harvesting effort was validated twice, first when the Gane’s fruit was selected for the winery’s CURIO label, and second when the 2008 CURIO Gane’s Vineyard Wairau Valley Sauvignon Blanc picked up Silver at the Royal Easter Wine Awards.
Brix: 23.2 Alcohol: 13.5% Residual Sugar: 3 g/L PH: 3.64 Soil type: deep fertile loam Clone: MS
Harvested in the dead of the night, this elegant pinot noir has something of a dark, passionate nature. With its Continental climate, the dry Bendigo sub-region of Central Otago reaches temperatures into the 30’s during the ripening season. Duncan Cramp and his team picked in the coolness of the wee hours to protect the quality of the grapes used for this wine.
No stranger to hard work, Duncan and his family arrived in New Zealand from Zimbabwe, where their farm had been confiscated by Robert Mugabe’s militia. When Duncan took on the job of managing Curio’s Bendigo vineyard, his determination to forge a new life for his family was backed up by many years of dry-land farming experience.
“I’ve been farming since I left school – that’s nearly 30 years ago”, says Duncan. “I’ve grown a lot of crops, but never grapes before. However the same challenges apply – pests, diseases, irrigation. Bendigo is hot and dry – conditions I’m well used to from Zimbabwe – we hardly ever use our windscreen wipers here.”
This wine is dedicated to Duncan and Janie Cramp, who have shown that the worst of times can lead to the best of wines.
This wine was made to express the best flavours of our Bendigo vineyard. Selective use of oak in the winery has enhanced to ripe pinot flavours. The wine is vibrant with dark red fruit and delicate savoury notes. Whole berries were allowed to remain intact at the commencement of fermentation. After a 5 day cold soak, the must was allowed to warm up and the fermentation occurred un-inoculated . The fermenting must was hand plunged 2-4 times per day and pressed off skins near dry. Half of this wine was matured in French oak barriques.
Brix: 24.5 Alcohol: 14.0% Residual Sugar: 5 g/L PH: 3.49 Soil type: Alluvial silt and schist overlaying gravels Clone: 5, 777 and Abel
It’s a word you’re more likely to see in the context of the art-filled drawing room of a Henry James novel than in today’s world of instant obsolescence, but ‘curio’, defined as something unusual and worthy of collecting, has been unearthed as the name of a new range of exclusive, single-estate and at times single-block wines.
Hailing from five different vineyards in Marlborough, Nelson and Central Otago, the inaugural Curio collection has launched with five varietals. Each wine has been carefully selected on the blending table from a myriad of single-vineyard fruit parcels, from which only the stand-out examples are deemed worthy of the Curio label.
The distinctively labelled 2008 Curio collection comprises of:
·Curio Gane’s Vineyard Wairau Valley Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc
·Curio Castles Vineyard Awatere Valley Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc
·Curio d’Auvergne Vineyard Wairau Valley Marlborough Gewurztraminer
·Curio Horrell Vineyard Valley Nelson Pinot Gris
·Curio Bendigo Vineyard Central Otago Pinot Noir
The grapes for Curio’s Bendigo Vineyard Central Otago Pinot Noir were harvested in the cool dead of night to protect the integrity of the fruit, giving the elegant wine somewhat of a dark and passionate character. Further north, the pickers at the Gane’s Vineyard in the Wairau Valley were fuelled by Raewyn Gane’s homemade scones during a non-stop seven-hour picking frenzy which resulted in the Gane’s securing a highly desired place within the 2008 collection.
The Horrell family contemplated their small but beautiful Pinot Gris crop and decided that it deserved the honour of a harvest by hand. Calling on family and friends, they celebrated the fruits of a hard day’s work with a lively picnic among their sunny Nelson vines. The unusually-located, award-winning Marlborough Gewurztraminer from the Wickham’s d’Auvergne vineyard proves that with a very good hunch and very little effort, nature can take its course and produce a little touch of magic vintage after vintage.
Growers Graeme and Raewyn Gane were delighted that their year’s work in the vineyard resulted in their fruit being selected as part of the first-ever Curio collection. “It shows we have some of the best fruit around and we are very proud to be part of such a stunning line up of wines,” Raewyn says.
Winemaker Nadine Worley says there is a special philosophy surrounding Curio wines. “We see a great wine as something to be admired and savoured, like a piece of art. We sought to create wines in the same way that an artist might produce a painting or sculpture – limited edition, using the finest materials and with the purpose of making something interesting, different and original.
“We look forward to introducing the wines to discerning consumers, who have increasingly high standards for New Zealand wines, and we are confident that they will find what we have done pleasing to their palates.”
The wines are available from fine wine retailers and in cafes, bars and fine-dining restaurants around New Zealand, including Bisque, Circa, Capitol, Museum Hotel and Ambeli in Wellington; Sticky Fingers and Annies in Christchurch; and in Auckland, O’Connell Street Bistro, The Engine Room, Rocco, Cibo and Soul Bar & Bistro (Soul Bar & Bistro was the winner of the Best Casual Dining Metropolitan category and the latter three were 2009 Cuisine NZ Restaurant of the Year Awards finalists, while O’Connell Street Bistro received the Best Service award Metro Magazine Restaurant of the Year awards 2009).
The 2008 Curio white varietals were released just in time for the 2009 Royal Easter Show Wine Awards; all four wines were awarded medals;
·GOLD - Curio d'Auvergne Vineyard Wairau Valley Marlborough Gewurztraminer
·GOLD - Curio Castles Vineyard Awatere Valley Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc
·SILVER - Curio Gane's Wairau Valley Vineyard Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc
·SILVER - Curio Horrell Vineyard Nelson Pinot Gris
The collection has also been looked upon with an artist’s eye. As the varietals will change vintage-to-vintage, the 2008 Curio collection has been captured in a series of photographic images by prominent New Zealand photographer Glenn Bisdee. “I wanted to play with chiaroscuro – the arrangement of light and dark elements in a pictorial work of art. I am very happy with the tone and feel of the series; there is a level of intrigue and ambiguity similar to 1940s and 1950s film noir, and the wines are interesting to look at,” he says.
Curio’s link to art extends as the exclusive wine sponsor for the upcoming Breast Cancer Research Trust Art for a Cure event, from 22 October to 1 November at Hopetoun Alpha, and the upcoming Marti Friedlander photographic exhibition, Looking Closely, at the Gus Fisher Gallery from 9 October to 21 November 2009.
The works will be sold at auction on Friday 30 October, with proceeds used to help find a cure for breast cancer within the next nine years, through the Breast Cancer Research Trust and its groundbreaking research.
The Inaugural Art for a Cure exhibition runs from 22 October – 01 November 2009 at Hopetoun Alpha, Auckland, New Zealand
Art for a Cure was conceived to raise funds to support the Breast Cancer Research Trust’s goal to find a cure for breast cancer within the next nine years.
There are two key components to the exhibition.
The first is a collection of five limited edition sculptures by some of New Zealand’s most celebrated artists who have each specially chosen or created a work for Art for a Cure. These pieces are intimate in scale and editioned so that more than one collector can experience their magic. They are available for acquisition both at the exhibition and on the Trust’s website.
The second part of Art for a Cure includes works created by more of New Zealand’s finest artists, and in this instance inspired by some of the country’s greatest singers, songwriters and composers. These works will go to auction on the evening of Friday 30th of October. These artists were invited to create an artwork inspired by their favourite music and the results are unique works that capture our time in New Zealand art and music history.
The exhibition also includes an art performance component. Visitors can buy an umbrella conceived of and designed by painter Andre Hemer and form part of a moving, growing artwork that flowers in the rain and takes art and the Breast Cancer Cure vision out into the world.
The project has been distinguished by the incredible generosity of the art and wider creative community and we ask you to take note of their contributions and support them as they so generously support Art for a Cure.
Further, we invite you to seize this opportunity to own these exceptional pieces of New Zealand history with their unique and valuable provenance, and in so doing to support the research into finding a cure for breast cancer for the enduring benefit of current and future generations around the world.
