Cameron Douglas: Ruru 'Tinkering' Immigrant's Vineyard Sparkling Méthode Traditionnelle NV, Central Otago

Immigrant's Vineyard Sparkling Méthode Traditionnelle NV, Central Otago 

RRP from $38.00

Roland and Lucienne moved to New Zealand from the Netherlands 1986, ultimately settling in Central Otago’s Alexandra area. 

Some years later Lucy studied viticulture in Hawke's Bay and after working in hospitality and retail for many years took the leap of faith and passion and acquired our vineyard. Their first vintage was in 2015 launching Ruru wines under the umbrella company – Immigrant’s Vineyard  

The wine: 

Made with 100% Pinot Noir fruit this is a very attractive methode traditionelle with a bold leesy autolysis quality with aromas and flavours of fresh oatmeal and apple, fresh grapefruit and white peach. A crunchy texture with plenty of acidity and youthful mouthfeel framing pomaceous and citrus fruits. Nice weight and length, a wine to enjoy through the warmer weeks of summer and very food friendly. Well tinkered with best drinking from day of purchase through 2028+. 

The Food:  

The default for many with a dry sparkling wine is Mussels or Oysters, salty in food brings out the fruit flavours in wine. Salo, salt lowers the tasters perceptions of acidity. 

There’s a great coffee table book called Champagne and Chandeliers (Publisher ‏ : ‎ Hardie Grant) , a page turner with some fantastic menus and matches. Try a soft boiled egg with caviar alongside Champagne, or just keep it super simple with a shallots 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

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

Speaker 2 (00:12):
It is time for your wine pick of the weekend.
Masters somalier Cameron Douglas has chosen an immigrants vineyard Ruru
tinkering sparkling method traditionale from Central Otago and he's with
us this morning. Hi, Cameron, how are you doing.

Speaker 3 (00:28):
Yeah, good morning, I'm doing well. Thank you very much.
Good to be back.

Speaker 2 (00:31):
Yeah, good to be speaking with you. So tell us
about the Ruru tinkering immigrants vineyard sparkling method traditional my pleasure.

Speaker 3 (00:41):
You know, in New Zealand there's about seven hundred and
forty wine producers and around two thirds of them classified
bespoke small produced less than two hundred thousand liters of
wine a year, and Immigrants vineyard Rudu wines are most
definitely bespoke. And it's a lovely background story of Lucy

(01:03):
and Roland moving to New Zealand from the Netherlands and
the mid eight and ultimately after some time in hospitality
and family and so on, they decided to take a
leap of faith into Central Otago and wine growing and
wine making. And they're very, very good at it. By
the way, this wine is made from one hundred percent

(01:24):
pen and Wi fruit, so it's method traditional bottle fermented wine,
and it delivers this lovely sort of leazy autolysis quality,
framing flavors of oatmeal and apple and grapefruit and white peach.
But I think one of the best things about the
wine is that it's got this lovely crunchy texture and
the soft, moose fine bubble about it. So it really

(01:49):
is quite delicious, A good tinkering wine to save a
while steer watching bird song, I think.

Speaker 2 (01:54):
Yeah, that sounds amazing. So the wine itself is made
with pin and wi fruit, right, Can you tell us
a little bit about that process.

Speaker 3 (02:02):
Yeah, So, essentially, because there are vineyard everything is hand harvested,
and what you have to do to make a white
wine out of red fruit is you press that juice
out of the grapes as quickly as possible, so you've
got little to no skin contact, and then you essentially
make a white pen and noir and then you pop

(02:23):
it back into another bottle and referment it to create
the bubble. So it goes through a second ferment in
the bottle, and this gives it that sort of that soft, plush,
moosy character, but it doesn't compromise on any fruit concentration,
so it's more of the white flesh fruits like grapefruit

(02:44):
and peach that come on the palate. But then it's
framed by this lovely acid line because you need that,
and Central Otago has lots of natural acid giving environment characteristics.
But it's a wine of great weight and length and
something to enjoy really this year before Christmas. Frankly, what would.

Speaker 2 (03:05):
You mention with if you were If you're doing that, well,
one of.

Speaker 3 (03:08):
The default matches with a sparkling wine is oysters or
mussels off the barbecue or you fish them up, meat
them raw. But for people who aren't into seafood like that,
one of the best matches I've ever had in my
life is like the soft boiled egg with caviat on top,
So it gives you the salt hit and richness and

(03:31):
saltiness in food and sparkling wine really do work quite
well together. It's exotic but such a lot of fun.

Speaker 2 (03:39):
Yeah, that sounds fantastic. Okay, you've got a book to
recommend for us too, there, I do champagne and chandeliers.

Speaker 3 (03:46):
Yeah, This is such a great coffee table book. It's
a big, heavy book and it looks at the world
of champagne, and all the imagery has chandeliers in it.
But the essence of the book is all of these
recipes or menus, very famous menus, serve to you know,

(04:06):
lords and ladies of the past and present and what
they paired the champagnes with. So it's a great visual
read and recipe ideas for serving sparkling wine. Fantastic per okay.

Speaker 2 (04:22):
So that's called champagne and chandeliers and Cameron's wine for
us this week comes from Immigrants Vineyard, the Ruru Tinketing
Emirates Vineyard sparkling method traditionale from Central Otago. We'll make
sure that there's a link to that wine up on
the News Talks website.

Speaker 1 (04:37):
For more from Saturday Morning with Jack Tame, listen live
to News Talks he'd be from nine am Saturday, or
follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.