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I did manage to get up in time for the ANZAC Dawn Memorial, and I’m really glad I did. I was half expecting it to be largely veterans and their families, but was pleased to see a healthy cross-section of the population. I actually did a big write-up for someone I know in the US to give him my impressions, so I’m a little burnt out on writing about it, but I think getting into the habit of cutting and pasting between this blog and the rest of my life would be a bad idea. Let me just say it was beautiful, yet understated, which I found both surprising and delightful.

But I think I’m ahead of myself. I should introduce this lovely beverage I have at hand, Pegasus Bay Pinot Noir 2004. It’s not rare or expensive by any means, but I like it both for its delicate taste and the memories I have of drinking it with someone special. But I digress…

One thing that is worth noting about the wine is the back label. I like back labels, even if I don’t always like what I read on them. As far as I’m concerned, there are more wineries out there than I will ever know, and I frequently find myself faced with an unfamiliar bottle. Being a gentleman, the first thing I do is introduce myself, and I appreciate it when a bottle provides some reciprocation on the label. Front labels often contain a great deal more information than is obvious, but even still I appreciate some detail on the back for the uninitiated, which typically includes myself. I’m on this topic because the back label on the Pegasus Bay bottle indicates that when their grapes are harvested they “are gently de-stemmed into small open vats and cuvasion is long.”

Now, I know pretty much nothing about wine making, so I figured ‘cuvasion’ to be a technical term having to do with what happens to bunches of grapes between being de-stemmed and when wine comes out at the other end. I checked Google and two things jumped out at me - there’s a winery somewhere in California named Cuvaison (note the ‘i’ on the opposite side of the ’s’) and that the term in French has to do with the skins of the grapes being in contact with the juice/wine during fermentation. So either they spell the term differently in New Zealand, there’s a typo, or it’s a completely different word. I had never heard of it in either form, so I’ve learned something new in any case. I’m just not exactly clear what that is.

Yes, that certainly was fascinating. If by chance anyone has ever read anything written here, I’m sure they’re long gone by now, so with that I’ll go. But first, the musical reference is to do with the ceremony this morning, which at this late hour seems as though it was ages ago. I heard for the first time the Australian national anthem and had a lyric sheet in front of me. The one line that strikes me is “For those who’ve come across the seas / We’ve boundless plains to share”. I know it would be easy to make a cynical comment and reference some recent refugee issue, but really just on the face of it, it’s one of the nicest sentiments I’ve seen in a national anthem. So good on them.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 25th, 2007 at 7:09 am and is filed under wine. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.