not serious wine chats

Once again we step outside the winery and step up to the pass to grab a plate of goodness with two of Aotearoa’s finest hospo folk, Rebecca Smidt & Dariush Lolaiy of Cazador Restaurant & Deli and San Ray all day eatery. I’ve had the privilege of calling Bex and Dariush pals for a number of years now and it was a special treat to get them in the hot seat to hear how hospo life brought them together, first as teenagers and friends and then onto lovers, restaurant co-owners and the proud parents of two terrific little kiddos. Cazador Restaurant opened its doors in Tāmaki Makaurau in 1987. The vision of Dariush’s parents, Tony and Barbara, this joint became the ‘go to’ for the lucky locals living down one end of Dominion Road. From day one, Cazador established itself as a place that delivers nose to tail dining based on the respectful pursuit of hunting that Tony himself enjoyed and something that he would pass onto his son. After 25 years, having established Cazador as a trusted place to enjoy a plate or two, Tony and Barbara were keen to step away from the restaurant. Now, a family biz can be a difficult buzz. Retaining the dreams and aspirations of one generation while trying to put your own stamp on the place can be a lot of pressure, especially when there’s quarter of a century of existing vibes that might be perceived as somewhat sacred and untouchable. During this chat, Bex and Dariush explain how time spent living and working in Italy, Greece, London and New York led to a deep appreciation of how important that legacy is and what an enormous gift it might be – so long as they didn’t fuck it up. This chat covers wine, sherry and mezcal. We work our way through a platter of tinned treats and terrine. We scoff our faces with rabbit rillette and stickleback on sourdough and we wash it all down with a deliciously salty Spanish wine that Bex delights in serving at the restaurant. This chinwag covers the challenges of honouring the past while honing a vision for the future. We talk about how important the customer is and how at Cazador, they’re not serving food, they’re serving people and how important it is to invite the customer on the journey rather than ram it down their throat.  I didn’t realise it, but I first met these two, right as they were starting their journey as the next gen of Cazador. I learn for the first time how that wasn’t an easy period and that the lessons being learned where mammoth. It’s the professional acumen of these two that I had absolutely no idea of the challenges in front of them and all I saw was an incredible young couple, utterly nailing it delivering the good timnot serious wine chats would like to thank our supporters:TradecraftBy the BottleAntipodes Water Co. Special thanks to my pal, Benj Brooking of Popular.nz for his help with the editing. An expert filmmaker, editing these chats is being done as one mate helping another. Thanks Benj. You're a legend. join the chatinstagram | facebookIf you're struggling to put that glass down, perhaps our chats aren't the right ear candy for you. While the chats are not serious, living your best life is a very serious matter indeed and a life fuelled by addiction doesn't sound dreamy at all. If you think you need a hand, visit the Ministry of Health site for platforms that might help you take the first step towards taking control back. Our warmest wishes for success on that journey.

Aidan Raftery hasn’t had formal training in winemaking but it seems wine has always featured somehow in some way in his life, a life that now happens to be making the stuff in a village somewhere in the Republic of Georgia. Born in the UK, he arrived in Aotearoa with his family as a young chap. Serendipity would have it that the family home was perched just around the corner from some wine writer, Master of Wine guy called Bob Campbell. With a curiosity of industrial proportions, Aidan took any opportunity to learn about wine from the neighbour, and his folks and to be honest, anyone who would engage in wine chats. Fast forward a few years and a need to leave our small island in the pursuit of more adventure and we follow Aidan’s journey to Melbourne where he established one of the first natural wine bars in the city and began to get his hands truly dirty with grape stain. It was here he gave winemaking a crack and fell even further into his own personal very deep wine cave. Aidan’s vim and vigour for learning, for making, for tasting and trying, for sharing and for caring about wine is bloody infectious. It’s also given him something of an enviable intrepid urge to follow his nose when it comes to wine adventures and nowhere says wine adventure more than Georgia, where the wine making history is deep, rich and UNESCO protected. If you think amphora and clay eggs are a new thing, you’re about 6000 years out of touch. It’s in this unexpected but fascinating part of the world that Aidan has really put down his winemaking roots. Chatting with this guy and drinking his wine is like being teleported to an utterly unknown terra firma. Grape varieties we’ve never heard of, inflictions on words that felt unfamiliar and hard to super pronounce all wrapped up in cultural traditions from a whole other time. This is one special chat with one special chap. So, put on your Chokha, put down your Panduri so you can pick up a glass and line up by the kvevris, this is the Not Serious Aidan Raftery chat.__not serious wine chats would like to thank our supporters:TradecraftBy the BottleAntipodes Water Co. Special thanks to my pal, Benj Brooking of Popular.nz for his help with the editing. An expert filmmaker, editing these chats is being done as one mate helping another. Thanks Benj. You're a legend. join the chatinstagram | facebookIf you're struggling to put that glass down, perhaps our chats aren't the right ear candy for you. While the chats are not serious, living your best life is a very serious matter indeed and a life fuelled by addiction doesn't sound dreamy at all. If you think you need a hand, visit the Ministry of Health site for platforms that might help you take the first step towards taking control back. Our warmest wishes for success on that journey.

You might think I’ve taken a departure from the wine chats by not talking to a winemaker for today’s chat. Quite the contrary. For most of us, the restaurant setting is where we get our best exposure to wines we may not have heard of or tried before. The beverage selection is an important income earner for any hospitality joint and the restaurant is an important customer for our beverage producing pals. With such genuine simpatico it seems only right that we include those hard-grafting hospo heroes in the chats to get their not serious take on wine too. If you live under a rock, you may not know Chef Josh Emett. For the rest of us, he’s the familiar face from the MasterChef tele show, he’s the Chef who shares social media reels of  cooking in his home kitchen, he’s written a couple of cracking cookbooks and he’s the kiwi done good having earned himself a top international accolade or two alongside folks like Gordon Ramsay. The anchor to all that action is Helen Emett. She’s one astute, highly motivated woman with a fierce vision for good business and a major funny bone. She’s a hoot and she’s the perfect candidate for a Not Serious chat but believe me when I say she’s bloody serious about getting a dining room perfect and executing extraordinary service in the restaurants she and Josh now own together. You will have likely seen Helen working the floor at Onslow Restaurant and now Gilt Brasserie. These two are grafters and they’re givers. They took the time, on a busy Monday morning to sit down and share some stories about their journey and how wine for them, and a sweet cocktail here and there, adds the seasoning to their well-travelled lives. It was a pleasure to sit down in the divine dining room of Onslow for this chat. The kitchen was in full prep mode which you’ll sometimes hear! If you haven’t been to Onslow yet, go. And because Covid taught these two nothing, you’ll also find them at their new spot, Gilt on Chancery Lane. So, pop your napkin on your lap, pour yourself a sparkling antipodes and grab the knife and fork. This is the Not Serious Helen and Josh Emett chat. not serious wine chats would like to thank our supporters:TradecraftBy the BottleAntipodes Water Co. Special thanks to my pal, Benj Brooking of Popular.nz for his help with the editing. An expert filmmaker, editing these chats is being done as one mate helping another. Thanks Benj. You're a legend. join the chatinstagram | facebookIf you're struggling to put that glass down, perhaps our chats aren't the right ear candy for you. While the chats are not serious, living your best life is a very serious matter indeed and a life fuelled by addiction doesn't sound dreamy at all. If you think you need a hand, visit the Ministry of Health site for platforms that might help you take the first step towards taking control back. Our warmest wishes for success on that journey.

One Tuesday morning in Tāmaki Makaurau mid August, Pete, John and I had the chance to sit down at the table at Coco’s Sound Lounge and chew the fat with Rosie Finn of Neudorf Vineyards — and she can chat. Rosie almost broke Matt Dicey’s record of such adept conversational flow that next to no editing was required. Dreamy! Matt still holds the record but Rosie was hot on his heels with only two short excerpts ending up on the cutting room floor. It was a total treat to chat to this fine wahine who is truly flying the flag for successful succession — quite a thing for the NZ wine industry — all the while being a relatively new Mum herself. Rosie’s folks, Judy and Tim Finn (not the musician) started Neudorf in the 1970’s. Like almost all of our wine pioneers that meant a mortgage or two and a lot of fast learning. Fast forward to 2023 and their daughter Rosie has stepped into the family biz as her folks step out to enjoy retirement.Rosie knows how to spin a yarn and in this chat she shares one of the best stories I’ve heard of pairing wine with food. It combines one wine and the cuisine of a Copenhagen based Michelin star restaurant and a night dive in an underwater cave set beneath Takaka Hill in the Kahurangi National Park. During our chat we had the pleasure of indulging in a sneak peak at the soon to be released 2022 Neudorf Rosie’s Block Amphora Chardonnay (coming at you 1 October). To say the wine was delicious is an understatement. While we crushed a cup, Rosie chatted away about how a Facebook post from Jude landed her a job with the wonderful wine ambassador Mel Brown at Pop Brixton, London. After what looked like a few years of nothing but fun Rosie reluctantly had to leave, unable to secure a visa extension. She returned home and suffered the common culture shock most of us kiwis feel after a few years of cutting loose in Blighty. She dried her teary eyes and took firm hold of the torch from Judy and Tim as the next generation to  drive this incredible family business. This was a chat that flowed from the moment we sat down. Rosie Finn is one delightfully funny woman.  So, find yourself a comfy spot, close your eyes and imagine you’re parked up somewhere on the beach in the Abel Tasman. The sun is shining that warming hue of Neudorf yellow and there’s a delicious glass of Chardonnay in your hand. This is the not serious Rosie Finn chat.not serious wine chats would like to thank our supporters:TradecraftBy the BottleAntipodes Water Co. Special thanks to my pal, Benj Brooking of Popular.nz for his help with the editing. An expert filmmaker, editing these chats is being done as one mate helping another. Thanks Benj. You're a legend. join the chatinstagram | facebookIf you're struggling to put that glass down, perhaps our chats aren't the right ear candy for you. While the chats are not serious, living your best life is a very serious matter indeed and a life fuelled by addiction doesn't sound dreamy at all. If you think you need a hand, visit the Ministry of Health site for platforms that might help you take the first step towards taking control back. Our warmest wishes for success on that journey.