Bad Rock Blog

What a full on month, not to over use that stupid cliché ‘hitting the ground running’ but that’s how the Christmas holidays finished and the New Year really began.

Pinot 2010 was one of the most well regarded wine conferences in the world with most of the top wine press attending plus about 107 NZ Pinot producers.
Held in Wellington, the capital decided to turn on a stunning week of unprecedented weather the place turned it on like a harbour capital should.
The conference was extremely informative with great speakers like Kevin Roberts (Saatchi’s) who tried to focus the audience on creating a love bite (aka Hiki) through building performance, trust and reputation with love from NZ (a global approach selling the credibility, knowledge, skills, attitude and reputation of what is means to be a NZ’er – pure). Also more importantly, thinking from the shelf back seducing though the packaging, taste, pricing, and stories.

Matthew Jukes (UK) was entertaining and informing clearly spelling out the NZ Pinot producers have a one off opportunity to dominate, with us being the best value and quality in the world and landing NZ in a great position to pick up where burgundy have had 3 successive poor vintages.
Nick Stock (Aust) comparing Pinot in NZ with analogies of surfing (which worked well for Wild Rock) that people drive a long way to get to waves, choose the right board for skills & waves, attack in different ways for different waves – yeah Nick. He went on to say we should focus on being unique, work on our complexity, balance, rise above industry standard, and avoid any phony made up wines (maybe an Aussie thing).
Jamie Goode and Steve Smith gave great speeches on sustainability and Tim Atkin and Jeremy Moon were very entertaining and engaging. There were plenty of other great speeches and inspiring moments as well.

There were some fantastic tastings (although I found the 20 min allocation tough to taste so many delicious Pinots – up to 13 in a tasting) being regional tastings , vintage tastings , & world tastings – absolute heaven!!!!!

Matthew Jukes rated Wild Rock up there (we made his cut) he gave our 07 Cupids Arrow 17.5 out of 20!

We had a great time at Harvest Hawkes Bay at Roy’s Hill in Hastings – first time in ages the event was held in one location. It was fun and great to enjoy with a friendly crowd of appreciative folks (no where near as smashed as at the Toast Martinborough event).

Well no rest for the wicked – moved into our first house in the Hawkes Bay (after 2 &1/2 yrs looking) and then flew off to NY NY! What a great city full of hospitable friendly folks who love Kiwis – thanks Bret, Jermaine and Murray!
The snow was falling and the city had a romance about it that rivalled Paris.
Sold lashings of Wild Rock wine and even fitted in some consumer tastings in downtown Manhattan and Soho and a concert with one of my favourite bands the Editors – too much.

Now down in Orlando Florida where it feels bigger than Texas – in fact apparently there are more hotel rooms than all US cities other than Vegas. Day 2 here and all is going swimmingly with me hosting an enjoyable seminar and meeting some knowledgeable eager wine people that make the whole thing a pleasure. #wine #pinot

Cheers
Ash - The Wild Rock Guy

Summer Holiday
Lovely to be back in NZ holidaying in the Bay of Islands, spent a week or so at Bland Bay swimming with dolphins and avoiding the odd shark. Great wines, great weather, great seafood, great friends and family! Yep – great stuff.

Blending 2009 wines
Tasting blends for some of the 2009 Wild Rock is bloody exciting, although for many in the industry this is business as usual – for me it’s better than Christmas!
Experiencing the tastes of the various components and understanding what the winemakers objectives are to bring them together in a marriage of harmony encouraging the individuality but not allowing any one part to dominate – it’s truly cool.

The 09 Pania suggests subtle canned peaches, complex oak, malolactic creaminess, toastiness, clean balanced finish – a seriously Moorish wine.
The 2009 looks to be positioned between the big bold up front 2007 and the more refined subtle classy 2008. Yesterday I tasted the individual oak puncheons (500 ltr barrels) and got seriously different oak flavours– Mercury puncheon was really complex and dynamic with toast, popcorn, and sandalwood vs others with coconut and charred earthly influences. Today with the blends all combined you get to appreciate the individual make up which joins together to provide a balanced dynamic complex array of flavours comfortably merged together.

Shot big time by Cupids Arrow 2009! The bouquet was mind blowing with strong cherry fruit sweetness and heavy herb, slate and oak notes. Massive!

Angels dust 2009 will satisfy anyone in search of the reserve. This wine showed huge plum flavours and distinctive blue flowers (lavender/violets) with firm tannin (which will be shaved off down the track).  It’s remarkable that the different vineyards Gimlett Gravels and High Country Estates (only 3 barrels from High Country Estate vineyard) which we bring together from the Hawke's Bay Region provide such different influences.  Gimlett is more black fruit, black pepper and blue flowers and High country is white pepper and red fruit.

Gravel Pit Red Merlot Malbec without trying to sound repetitive another blinder! With a warm year and with the rain stopping on queue we have a smooth layered sexy red on our hands. Tasting the Merlot separate it was silky and smooth, rounded and full and then trying the Malbec separately I got toasted coppery mocca, charred effect with nutty biscuity flavours and hints of anise – together …ahhhh perfection. #wine





Cheers
Ash - The Wild Rock Guy

Wild Rock Account Visits
Turtle Bay is a well catered resort set out on a point with an amazing surf break, golf course, and some excellent restaurants like Ola’s and 21 Degrees. I did a Wine Representatives Dinner at 21 Degrees and a wine information night with Ola’s. The staff at Ola’s were really great fun to party with too!
Ola’s loved our Pinot Noir for it’s up front fruit, wild thyme mid palate & dry finish. Our Savy was appreciated for its stand out difference to all other NZ Marlborough Savy’s – a hint of Riesling and Viognier. Ola sold out of our wine while I was there – I arranged an emergency Wild Rock drop off no worries.

Swapped my Jeep Cherokee rental over for a cheaper Mustang convertible!! Check out the deal on Hotwire – only $26 a day!

Had some excellent market visits to existing and potentially new accounts in Honolulu (an hour or so drive over the island from the North Shore). Had a great lunch at Duc’s Vietnamese/French restaurant in Chinatown – yum roast duck breast with ginger – followed by their fab gin cocktail. Duc’s give you a complimentary cocktail with every meal! The meals are really inexpensive and delicious. Checked out all the top hotels in Waikiki too.

Eddie Aikau Big Wave Invitational Surfing Contest
This competition requires big waves of minimum 30ft wave face for ‘Eddie to be on’ and has only been held nine times (including this event) since it started in 1985. The waves were so big they went over the only road in/out of the North Shore and there were high surf warning signs up like the ones for road traffic in NZ.
An experience of a lifetime – I got to catch some of this craziness in the largest waves I have ever seen. It was excellent to see Billabong’s Greg Long winning.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7GQF-6RRWz4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eE8y4kIgOp4


Billabong Pipeline Masters
If you had to choose between the three events of the Vans Triple Crown my pick would be the Pipeline without a doubt.
An absolutely brilliant event which was well laid out with two main areas;
• the promotional tents (including the dead cool Wild Rock one) and leader/information board elevated up on the grass looking down on the Bozai Pipeline which was about 100m long
• The beach tents had pro surfer tents, photographer tents and thousands of people sitting on the sand, and when it got too hot swimming in the shallow waters.

The surf was consistent and crowd pleasing keeping you on the edge of your seat. Some fantastic rides through the Pipeline and back door barrels too.


My favourites were Joel Parkinson and Taj Burrow – I was gutted to see Joel fall of the of the top of the wave in one of the final heats.
It was great that Taj won and Joel took the WTA (winner takes all) prize.

The Wild Rock Party was awesome – just amazing! We had about 150 people at the Billabong House on the Pipeline with Donavan Frankenreiter playing and Joel Parkinson, Taj Burrow, Andy Irons and many other top pro surfers there. The party went to 3-4ish when we went swimming in the sea (after I inadvertently took the 10 ft wall down!). We had a blast and the vibe was really happy – Wild Rock Wine was enjoyed by all. The auction including an action trip to NZ (including - AJ Hackett Auckland Harbour Bungy, Auckland Wakeboarding, Queenstown Kawarau Jet boating and Rafting) as a prize went really well and the money raised for SurfAid doubled what we expected.

We then had another huge party the night after for Billabong – a Lifeguard Charity party with about 1000 people – Wild Rock was the only wine enjoyed by all!

After all of that I headed home to Christmas in NZ. Phew!

Cheers
Ash - The Wild Rock Guy