Clearview Estate Enigma flying high
2 April 2012
MEDIA RELEASE
Clearview Estate Enigma flying high
Pitching against 700 wines, Clearview Estate’s premium red, Hawke’s Bay Enigma Merlot Malbec Cabernet Sauvignon 2009 is now one of 24 of this country’s leading wines being enjoyed by Air New Zealand business premier customers around the world.
This was the winery’s first foray into the airline’s twice annual wine selection process.
Air New Zealand serves over 6.5 million glasses of wine to its in-flight customers each year, making it the largest single server of wine in the country. The aim of the selection process, as outlined in a glossy printed wine guide given to every business premier passenger, is to make each journey a “uniquely Kiwi experience and to showcase the very best that New Zealand has to offer”.
The guide describes the premium red wines section of Clearview’s Enigma as a category “for the serious wine consumer as well as the adventurous wishing to be pleasantly surprised, and one that will increasingly feature innovative wines”.
For Clearview Estate winemaker Barry Riwai, to be selected on the first time entered is exciting news. “It’s a reinforcement that we are achieving the excellence we are striving for. It is really thrilling as it puts us in front of a wide range of potential customers.”
The wines put forward by wineries throughout the country are blind tasted by an experienced panel of connoisseurs, who take into account how the wines will react at altitude, as this often brings forward certain characteristics in the wine.
Hawke’s Bay’s experienced senior wine judge, Kate Radburnd, winemaker and managing director of C J Pask Winery, has been a wine consultant with Air New Zealand since 2005 and was joined on the selection panel by international wine judge Jim Harre and John Belsham, owner and winemaker from Foxes Island Wines.
ENDS