Slow Living Radio comes to you from Matter of Taste, Robert Parker's Wine Advocate premier wine event in San Francisco. We enjoy a conversation with Lisa Perrotti-Brown, MW, Editor in Chief, followed by Milan Brajkovich or New Zealand's Kumeu River, and Gavin Speight of Old Bridge Cellars to talk about Greywacke wines.
Matter of Taste is a no-holds-barred walkabout wine tasting experience built around sought-after, iconic wines and the most talented winemakers in the world.
A no-holds-barred wine tasting experience, Matter of Taste San Francisco is built around 150 of the most iconic Pinot Noirs and Chardonnays of California, Oregon and New Zealand, as well as cult-classic Rhone blends from California’s original Rhone Ranger pioneers. Each featured wine is rated 90+ points by The Wine Advocate and handpicked by Editor in Chief, Lisa Perrotti-Brown MW, and Reviewer Jeb Dunnuck.
Wine Advocate Editor in Chief
Assigned
Regions: Australia and New Zealand
Born and raised in rural
Maine, USA, Lisa graduated from Colby College with a degree in English
Literature and Performing Arts. Her wine career began by accident when, living
as a struggling playwright in London after college, she stumbled into a job as the
manager of a wine bar. She progressed through wine sales and marketing roles in
the UK wine trade throughout the ‘90s and early noughties before moving to
Tokyo in 2002 where she worked as a wine buyer for one of Japan's top fine wine
importers and a wine educator at Tokyo's Academie du Vin. In 2008 Lisa began
writing a column for Robert Parker's website, eRobertParker.com, and
later that year she achieved her Master of Wine qualification and the Madame
Bollinger Medal for excellence in wine tasting. Now living in Singapore, she is
the Editor in Chief for Robert Parker's Wine Advocate and eRobertParker.com
and remains the publication's critic for the wines of Australia and New
Zealand. Published by Robert Parker's Wine Advocate in 2015, Lisa's first book,
Taste Like a Wine Critic: A Guide to Understanding Wine Quality, offers
a comprehensive, straight-talking guide to answering the most important
question that can be asked about wine: Is it good?
The Brajkovich family and Kumeu River Wines is a story that
parallels the New Zealand wine industry.
From the pioneering days to the establishment of the New Zealand
wine industry to today, the Brajkovich family have been internationally
recognised as producing world class wine. The Brajkovich family continue to
harvest their grapes at Kumeu and refine their wine making skills. The Brajkovichs are nationally recognised as a founding family of the New Zealand wine industry, and the current generation are internationally recognised as producing world class Chardonnay.
Kumeu River has some of the most qualified, experienced, and
dedicated staff as a business in this industry.
Milan Brajkovich
Vineyard Director
With a Bachelor of Engineering in Chemical Engineering,
vineyard director Milan Brajkovich provides the technology at Kumeu River
Winery whilst at the same time working with the land in the traditional way;
such as hand harvesting, training the vines to grow on lyre trellises (U-shaped
frames that expose the grapes to more sunlight), and canopy netting.
As the vineyard’s director, Milan manages a total of 40
hectares, with 10 hectares belonging to the various regional growers that
supply Kumeu River.
We have an expert team of hand-pickers who harvest and
sort the fruit, so that it arrives at the presses in pristine condition. The
grapes are gently whole-bunch pressed to extract the best possible juice, which
then goes in French oak barrels for fermentation. We do not add any yeast. We
simply rely on the wild yeast strains that are naturally found on the grape
berries that come in from the vineyard, which gives us a unique flavour and
texture that is truly reflective of each vineyard’s individual terroir.
Variations in taste result from very minor variations in
soil.
“We have two vineyards that are practically next door
to each other, growing the same grapes in the same conditions, yet their minor
soil differences are very obvious in the final product.”
For Milan, creating better wine involves a careful series
of minor adjustments and planning as well as respecting that the weather gods
will always play a role in the year’s vintage.
Importers of Greywacke
Greywacke
is the Marlborough label of Kevin Judd, and the fulfilment of a long held
dream. The name Greywacke was adopted by Kevin and his wife Kimberley for their
first Marlborough vineyard located in Rapaura, named in recognition of the high
prevalence of rounded greywacke river stones in the soils of the vineyard.
Kevin registered the name back in 1993 with the vague notion that he might one
day want to use it on a wine label of his own.
This
quality focused winemaking venture sources fruit from mature vineyards within
the central Wairau Plains and the Southern Valleys. These prime viticultural
sites are cultivated using yield restricting vineyard management techniques and
intense canopy management regimes. A number of the vineyards are owned by the
Sutherland family, while complementary grape parcels are acquired from
additional select sites, all located within these sub-regions. The wines are made by Kevin at Dog Point
Winery in the lower Brancott Valley, a facility extended to him by
long-standing friends and industry colleagues, Ivan Sutherland and James Healy.
The
Greywacke portfolio is primarily based on two varieties, sauvignon blanc and
pinot noir, the sauvignon blanc being produced in two distinctly different
styles. In addition to this core range
of three
wines, there are also limited edition releases of chardonnay, and three
aromatic varieties – pinot gris, riesling and gewurztraminer. Kevin’s signature
vineyard photographs provide the unmistakable identity of the Greywacke range.
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