MAKING small talk about food and wine in New Zealand is dangerous. My attempts during a recent holiday earned me incredulous looks from proud New Zealanders who take their gastronomy seriously.
The label on Cloudy Bay wine - that grey, misty mountain scene - is one of my favourites. But even that caused me to blush. I had been dying to visit its source at Blenheim and compare the landscape of Marlborough's Richmond Ranges to the labels that remind me of a Japanese painting.
While at the winery I met Kevin Judd, Cloudy Bay's manager and winemaker. In a burst of enthusiasm I swooned about the label, then recounted my understanding of how the label evolved: the winery's owner was unhappy with his present label, so, one morning, he grabbed his trusty Polaroid and within three clicks, snapped the winner.
My tale failed to amuse him. 'I took that photo with a Nikon,' he said, without blinking.
A series of bloopers happened at the New Zealand Wine and Food Festival in Wellington. It is a glorious event, held annually, at the Civic Square, where up to 60 wineries and restaurants feed 16,000 visitors.
I butted into a cosy group just in time to catch the term, 'the Bays'. It referred to wine, as in Cloudy Bay and Hawkes Bay, not the islands north of Auckland which prompted my tourist refrains about their beauty. To recoup some face, I tossed in a nugget about the popularity of Cloudy Bay wines in Hong Kong and their impossible prices.
An advertising executive from Auckland, launched into a debate about the reason behind Cloudy Bay's success overseas (savvy marketing), then questioned Hong Kong's inflated wine prices.