“The wines I tried with friends in the lead up to the festive season mark the wines that I love best,” says wine columnist RICHARD CALVER. 

MOST most importantly, in telling you of these three wines, I express gratitude that I can enjoy the best of wines and long-lasting friendships. Or as the Kiwis say at this time of year: thank ewe. 

Recently, a friend I’ve known for nearly 50 years visited from NZ. I’d been to his wedding 30 years ago and it was good to see his wife (same one!) again, too. 

It was an early start to the festive season but we know each other very well, to the extent that as a present he’d brought over the ditch a Mount Difficulty Bannockburn Pinot Noir 2021. This is a favourite wine that will keep for at least eight years, maybe 10. 

The last time I tried this wine, I believe it was the 2019, I knew it would keep well because as well as the blackberry and plum fruit flavours that are well balanced, there was enough tannin to give a long finish. 

In essence, tannins form the backbone of red wines and they’re the main determinant of the longevity of reds. But you could pretty much buy me any Otago-grown pinot noir and I’d be happy. 

Central Otago is protected from the otherwise maritime climate of NZ with mountains on all sides. The summers there are often hot and dry, while winters can be bitterly cold so that it’s likely that snow will cover the vines at least once a year. 

Growing grapes and making wine in this region is famously known as living on the edge. It produces sometimes spectacular pinot noirs. And in a spectacular gesture, I put the present in storage.

But to reciprocate with our first dinner together I cracked a Tasmanian sparkling, a Pirie vintage 2019 from the Tamar Valley that won a gold medal at the Melbourne Royal Wine Awards this year. 

Tassie as a wine-growing region can only keep getting better; a cold-climate wine region that seems to be growing in success as climate change bites.

This year a Tasmanian red won the coveted Jimmy Watson trophy that this Melbourne show is famous for, the Lowestoft La Maison Pinot Noir, 2022. 

The Pirie was fresh and clean, no brioche finish as with French champagne, but with a lighter refreshing flavour at the back of the palate, a great accompaniment to the smoked chicken dish as its acids complemented this Poachers Pantry delight. 

While my friends were in this country, we tasted a local chardonnay from my collection, the 2021Tiger Tiger from Collector Wines. This wine won the top gold in the 2023 Canberra and Region Wine Show for chardonnay 2022 and older. 

In addition, Collector Wines was recently named #57 in the inaugural Halliday Wine Companion Top 100 Wineries 2023. My daughter works at The Boat House and it sells this wine by the glass, where I’d enjoyed it in September as other New Zealanders were visiting. 

My friends are not usually fond of chardonnay, but liked this drop. The distinctive grapefruit nose and long mouth-filling depth of this wine is exemplary. 

My friends said it was a far cry from the chardonnays of old. I agreed that in the past too many wines of this variety had rankled with a belt of oak and butter. Instead the Collector is fresh and flinty, a good food wine.

How do generals show their gratitude to their troops? They give tanks.