Cameron Douglas: Tohu Pinot Gris 2025

Tohu Pinot Gris 2025, Awatere Valley, Marlborough RRP from $18.99  

The Awatere is located on the eastern site of Marlborough with many of the vineyards at the north-eastern reaches. On a clear day, the North Island is easy to see. This location means many of the vineyards are exposed to the easterly and southerly breezes, but there are significant sunshine hours to ripen the grapes.  

The wine styles are nearly always fresh and taut, often with a saline quality to the acidity. Lots of citrus and pomaceous fruit flavours are common in the wines.  

Founded in 1998, Tohu Wines is the world’s first Māori-owned wine company. They produce excellent wines including sparkling and Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, Riesling, and this Pinot Gris.  

This wine has some delicacy about it, it is bright, taut, fresh, salivating. The varietal flavours of green and red apple, white peach, pear and some honeysuckle deliver the core mid-palate flavours and weight. Salivating and just dry on the palate with textures from lees and acidity creating a vibrant mouthfeel. Well-made, balanced and ready to drink from late 2025 through 2028.  

 

The season: rather excellent  

• Warm spring. 
• Near-perfect flowering. 
• Above-average yields.  
• The diurnal shift from warm days to cool night ensured both flavour development and acidity were preserved. 

 

Food match:  

New season sweet corn with lots of butter and sea-salt with this wine is a near perfect match. You can also dip the corn cob into a sour-cream sprinkled with nutmeg for some extra matching.  

Alternatively, a sweetcorn fritter topped with sour-cream and a slice of smoke salmon works just as well with the Tohu Pinot Gris. 

 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:07):
You're listening to the Saturday Morning with Jack Tame podcast
from News Talks AB.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
Cameron Douglas is our master Soamelier and for his pick
this week, he has chosen a Tahu Peno Greed from
twenty twenty five the Awaitedi Valley in Marlborough. It retails
for about nineteen dollars and Cameron's with us this morning.

Speaker 3 (00:25):
Good morning, good, good morning. How are you very well?

Speaker 2 (00:28):
Thank you? So tell us about the Tahu Penal Gree.

Speaker 3 (00:32):
Well, Tahu Wines a very special producer because not only
founded in nineteen ninety eight, they're the world's first Maori
owned wine company and I think that's pretty special. The
location for their vineyards for this particular wine is the
Auitre or Autree Valley, and I know lots of listeners

(00:53):
will know Marlborough generally speaking, and you know the fame
of Sauvignon blanc from there. This is more on the
eastern side and a northern facing vineyards, so you get
to see the South Island on a clear day. That's
pretty cool. This wine is all about or pinagree should
always be about palet weight, freshness and flavor and including

(01:18):
sort of the sparkling wine and panaware and chardoney riaslings
that they make. They all teck those boxes of palate weight,
freshness and flavor. This particular expression from twenty five has
a little bit of delicacy about it. It still has
that bright, taught, fresh, salivating mouthfeel which Penatgree should have,
and those flavors of red and green apple, white peach,

(01:44):
pear and even honeysuckle. Dump all of this flavor in
the mid palate and that's all surrounded by this freshness
of acidity that with vineyards from the ar Witree you
get this nice saline effect, and that's in part from
proximity to the ocean, but it's also part of the

(02:06):
acid line, that natural flavor, that acid acidity can bring
to wines from this particular place. Great mouth feel from
a really really good vintage. So it's a it's a
beautiful wine to try at a fabulous price.

Speaker 2 (02:19):
Yeah right, So tell us a bit more about the
twenty twenty five vintage in.

Speaker 3 (02:23):
Marlborough overall, if I had to say two words, rather
excellent overall, a warm spring, almost near perfect flowering conditions,
not too windy at all, and that is a you know,
it's a fairly windy place down there, but near perfect
flowering conditions which gave good yields, so plenty of fruit harvested.

(02:45):
There's this term and wine making or grape growing called
the diurnal shift. In this particular part of New Zealand
has it in spades. If you like very very warm days,
very cool night, so it allows the wine, the vineyard,
the grapes to or in the vines to breathe in
and out with the flow of a day, if that

(03:08):
makes sense sense. The planet breeds in it out, so
does these vines in it, and it works particularly well
in this area.

Speaker 2 (03:13):
Oh nice. So what would you match the tahoo peanut
agree with?

Speaker 3 (03:18):
I'm a big fan of sweet corn on the cob
and I can't help but suggest sweet corn on the
cob with lots and lots of butter. I was brought
up putting butter on sweet corn on the cob, and
I can't help but do that. Lots of butter, lots
of salt and top peanutgree works really well. If you
like sour cream, put lemon juice and sour cream in

(03:40):
a little sprinkle of nutmeg, so you can dip the
salted buttered corn in that and peanutgree works particularly well.
If you're not a fan of corn on the cob
but you like sweet corn anyway, then make some fritters
top of with sour cream and smoke salmon. It's just
delightful in a perfect match.

Speaker 2 (03:59):
Damn, Cameron, you got my stomach rumbling this morning. Sounds amazing.

Speaker 3 (04:03):
Yeah, I'm a bit angry too now yeah, yeah, thank you.

Speaker 2 (04:06):
So much, very good. So Cameron's picked for us this
week as a TAHU penigree. The vintage is twenty twenty
five from the Awateri Valley and Marlborough. Will have all
the details on the News Talks HEEDB website.

Speaker 1 (04:19):
For more from Saturday Morning with Jack Tame. Listen live
to News Talks he'd B from nine am Saturday, or
follow the podcast on iHeartRadio