Word: wine
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...needs just one night to destroy everything. While vines don't mind snow, grapes hate frost, and the only reliable way to stop cold air from killing a crop is expensive and terrifying. Neill and Peren, along with the other winemakers in a region that features such wine stars as Felton Road and the well-named Mt. Difficulty, are all too familiar with frost watch, which means helicopter flying at night. To keep the air moving, squadrons of choppers fly low, a maneuver rendered yet more perilous because the valleys are crisscrossed with electricity cables. "It scares the hell...
...Sauvignon Blancs of the Marlborough region farther to the north--including Cloudy Bay, now owned by French luxury group Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton--that really put New Zealand wines on the map. Yet plenty of wine connoisseurs remained skeptical about Central Otago Pinot Noir. Neill makes sure to credit his mentors: the late Rolfe Mills of Rippon winery, who started to plant in 1976, and Alan Brady, who today co-helms a two-man boutique winery called Mount Edward. "It's a small region, and we cooperate with each other," says Neill. "Everyone helps everyone else and pools their...
Rippon, now operated by Rolfe's son Nick Mills, is also significant because, situated on the banks of Lake Wanaka, it has what must surely be the most spectacular cellar-door point of sale on earth, attracting some 15,000 wine tourists a year. Peregrine Wines, too, has a robust cellar-door business, as do other wineries in Central Otago. But don't turn up at Two Paddocks. "We discourage it by being hard to find, because I like wandering around with my shirt off," says Neill, who prefers to drum up sales via a terse and amusing blog...
...splits his time, Neill notes that both his professions are "very chancy and very weather dependent." But wine can be much harder work. "I certainly wouldn't turn down a great acting gig so I could be on my hands and knees putting grapes in a bucket," he says with a laugh...
MADELEINE AND HER SIBLINGS WERE ALONE in their room while Kate and Gerry ate and drank with seven friends. How much the nine vacationers drank is another point of dispute; the amounts range from the just over four bottles of wine claimed by the McCanns to the 14 bottles alleged in some Portuguese news reports. The Ocean Club offers babysitters, but neither the McCanns nor their friends hired one. Instead, they apparently agreed to check on their kids every half hour. Once again, there are conflicting reports about whether the checks were carried out with precise regularity...