Other favorites include a tawny port, a rare white port and a Federweisser, a young wine for Easter (which is an autumn holiday in the southern hemisphere). Among the standouts are Pinot Noir, Pinot Noir Rose, Merlot, the blend Pheasant's Walk, the Muscat Bay Breeze, Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc. Like many Syrahs of New Zealand, it contains notes of berries and pepper.Ĭottle Hill produces a variety of reds and whites, including some unusual flavors. Okahu Estate's Chardonnay is notable, and Okahu's Kaz Shiraz, a Syrah, won the first gold medal ever given to a Northland wine. How does all this warmth play out in the bottle? Find out on the next page. Most vines are grown on flats or gentle slopes, not the steep hillsides you encounter in many other wine regions. Elsewhere it has high concentrations of clay or sandy clay. Some soil in the Northland region is volcanic - highly mineral and well-drained. The grapes can stay on the vine for a long, warm time, allowing the crucial sugars to accumulate. In fact, it usually has New Zealand's warmest growing season. Merlot and Syrah grapes also fare well here because of the long growing season. The best solution, for now, seems to be to focus on thicker-skinned grapes - such as Syrah, Cabernet and Pinotage - which have more natural defenses against mold. Recently growers have begun to experiment with rot-resistant strains of red grapes. However, Northland's humidity and generally wet climate mean that growers here must be careful about rot. For a look at their growing methods, read on. Perhaps it's no coincidence that this area also contains most of Northland's vineyards. There are no high-rise buildings or traffic lights - anywhere - north of Whangarai. Today Northland's population numbers in the hundreds of thousands. Active movements to preserve Maori culture and language have resulted in a strong contemporary Maori identity. Although some problems of inequality persist, they are less pronounced than in many other former colonial areas. Twentieth-century urbanization integrated the two cultures with relative thoroughness. (Many Maori believe that, in lieu of ownership, each generation holds the land in trust for the next.) In response to the threat, some chieftains began conducting raids and other guerrilla attacks against British settlements, touching off the Maori Wars. It came to serve as the founding document of the New Zealand government, and the place where it was signed remains a historic park.įor a few decades, however, the treaty had the opposite of its intended effect: It led the Maori to recognize the colonists as a grave threat to Maori culture and land. In 1840, the Treaty of Waitangi marked a turning point: a formal arrangement between the Maori and the British Crown. The Bay of Islands was once called the "hellhole of the Pacific". The arrival of so many different groups created conflict, as it has in similar situations around the world. You can still pick out Scottish and Croatian names among the Maori and English place names around the country. Several major waves of immigration came to Northland in the 19th century - from Nova Scotia, Ireland, Wales, the Dalmatian coast and Britain.
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