NZ Pinot Noir Selected for World’s Finest Wine Glasses

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New Zealand Pinot Noir Selected for World’s Finest Wine Glasses

CROMWELL, Central Otago, New Zealand, 16 November 2012. A New Zealand Pinot Noir from Misha’s Vineyard in Central Otago has been selected to demonstrate some of the finest crystal glasses crafted for Pinot Noir by 250-year old Austrian glass company Riedel, the world’s leading designer and producer of luxury glassware.

The Riedel Glass Tasting is to be held on Saturday 17th November in Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam, one of South-East Asia’s newly emerging wine markets, and will be hosted by Riedel’s 10th-generation company President George J Riedel. Tickets for the event which will be held in the city’s leading international 5-star hotel, the Caravelle Hotel, are priced at US$110 a seat and were sold out over a week ago with 120 people scheduled to attend.

“It’s an honour that a New Zealand Pinot Noir has been selected to showcase these superb glasses” said Misha Wilkinson, Director and co-owner of Misha’s Vineyard with her husband Andy Wilkinson. “We started exporting our wines to Vietnam in the middle of last year and in that time we have seen a lot of development in the market and increasing sophistication – it’s such an exciting new market and amazing that so many people will be attending this kind of tasting event” said Wilkinson who has just returned from her second visit to the market.

New Zealand’s Consul-General and Trade Commissioner, Graham Sims, who is based in Ho Chi Minh City, says that with westernisation and higher income levels, alcohol consumption is rising rapidly in Vietnam with forecasts for wine to increase by up to 6 % per annum until 2015. “Following the implementation of the AANZFTA agreement in 2010, Vietnam is now probably an easier place than China for New Zealanders to do business.” he said.

Sims says that with the country’s French connections, there is already a culture of drinking wine and when you add that to a population of 88 million people, it’s not surprising that the market is attracting more interest from wine producers.

Misha’s Vineyard “The High Note” Pinot Noir 2008 will be one of just three wines used for the Riedel glass tasting event which will showcase the designs within the Vinum XL Series, the new generation of Riedel wine glasses, which retail in New Zealand at $68 per glass. The Vinum XL Pinot Noir was designed in 2008 and came about as a result of several workshops with Pinot Noir producers in Oregon USA. The shape of the glass shows the fresh fruit components and highlights the sweetness, whilst balancing the acidity and deemphasizing the alcohol to create a ideal impression of the wine with Georg Riedel claiming it a “a perfect Pinot Noir dream glass”

The actual tasting process involves guests being led through an appreciation experience the wines in the correctly Riedel glass and then comparatively in another glass, in order to highlight the significant differences in both aroma and taste that two glasses or more can bring to the same wine. During the tasting Mr. Riedel will explain how and why the flavour of wine differs so dramatically from one glass to another.

Riedel have long held a reputation for making the finest glasses and in fact were the first company to understand how the shape of a glass dramatically affects a wine’s bouquet and flavour with Time Magazine reporting that over the past 50 years, “this Austrian clan of master glassmakers has done more to enhance the oenophile’s pleasure than almost any winemaking dynasty.”

“Some people are surprised we’ve entered the Vietnam market but we see so much opportunity in these newly emerging markets of South-East Asia and we have had many years experience working in Asia prior to establishing our vineyard” said Wilkinson. “On our recent trip to Ho Chi Minh City we visited a three-level restaurant and bar complex, due to open in two weeks, and situated on the top of Bitexco Financial Tower. They even have a helipad located on the 50th floor of the tower so guests can arrive directly to the new Heli Bar. Interestingly we found the CEO of the Food and Beverage company leading this new luxury venue was a fellow New Zealander!”

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