Mt. Beautiful By Name And Nature

Mount Beautiful is a stunning little boutique winery located in the Cheviot Hills area of North Canterbury in New Zealand. Founded by David and Leigh Teece the winery is situated in a region that, at the time, was not known for winemaking, but their vision and passion to make a different style of New Zealand wine shone through and they are now making some of the most unique wines in the region.

The winery is very young and they have just arrived in Hong Kong recently courtesy of their exclusive importer here, Golden Gate Wine. For eight years Golden Gate had pioneered the American wine market here in Hong Kong but, due to overwhelming customer demand according to managing director Toby Marion, they decided to branch out and bring some boutique wines from New Zealand and other major wine producing countries.

“Mount Beautiful is a great winery”, Toby tells me. “It’s situated in a really interesting place and the wines have a distinct and interesting taste perspective”.

This is a sentiment echoed by export manager James Kennish who says of the wines and the winery; “they’re beautiful wines made by beautiful people in a beautiful place”. The winery is actually named after Mount Beautiful, a local landmark and, by looking at the pictures of North Canterbury you can see that they aren’t wrong.

Of the sourcing of the area James tells me that David and Leigh were looking for clay soils in particular, ones that are not dissimilar to the topography of Burgundy – and their Pinot Noir is pretty damn good actually! The wines produced have a different flavour profile to the common associations made with New Zealand wines and this, in part, is due to the unique micro climate of the region James tells me.

The vineyards are farmed sustainably and are “about as green as green can get” in this regard according to James. They need to be certified sustainable too otherwise they are not allowed to export their wines – the New Zealand government is getting more and more strict about wines they export these days apparently.

James himself is a Brit by birth but has been settled in New Zealand for the last 13 years and all traces of ‘Britishness’ – including the accent – have all but disappeared. The only remaining British trait he has left is wit, something us Brits never get rid of and something that is unique to ourselves (I know this as I spent the whole day yesterday watching ‘Allo ‘Allo and Fawlty Towers – icons of British humour!)

But back to the wines! Mount Beautiful make only four wines, a Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot Gris, Riesling and Pinot Noir. All bar the Sauvignon Blanc are hand harvested and, even for one who is not overly partial to New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc, I myself found the Sauvignon to be distinctly different from the super tropical flavours we have all been accustomed to from, in particular, the Marlborough region of New Zealand.

The Riesling is a little off dry but in no means sweet and is a fantastically elegant wine and versatile enough to be used as both an aperitif and can go with a simple dessert as the acidity is such that this is possible. The Pinot Gris, strangely the overwhelming favourite among Hong Kong clients, is beautiful and was a real delight to not just taste, but to drink. There are some nice crisp apple and pear flavours coming from the wine too which adds to the intrigue.

I found the Pinot to be excellent and is classic in style, but reminiscent of an old world style of wine. Easy and approachable now for sure, but I think, given time, it will certainly reward the patient drinker after a few years in the cellar.

In all, I was very pleasantly surprised with the quality and style of Mount Beautiful wines, had a blast with James while he was here in Hong Kong and thought that the wines went really well with both the dinner we were having at the time and would drink very well on their own. For more information on the wines you can contact Golden Gate Wine by email at sales@goldengatewine.com or check out their website www.goldengatewine.com