Our fellow wine lovers,
An introduction is needed here. My name is Michael Mebus. I am the new General manager of Winesale.co.nz. Amongst my many tasks, I have to find you the best wine deals available from New Zealand as well as from overseas and besides that to be informative. So this is my first ever blog.
I am from Dutch decent and on the day I am writing this we have lost the world cup final in South Africa to Spain. Now what has this to do with winesale.co.nz ? Well strangely enough a lot. All countries mentioned have been pivotal in many ways for the wine industry. Let me clarify:
The Dutch were a seafaring nation many centuries ago. On these voyages they needed as much food as possible but above all produce that could not spoil. As you all know alcohol keeps wine however in those days wines were lower in alcohol so the Dutch commissioned the Bordeaux wineries to leave the grapes hanging on the vines longer to increase the sugar content and as a result have higher alcohol levels. Secondly they added Sulphur Dioxide to the wines. We are of course talking about parts per million. Nowadays we still produce wines in the same way. Look on the back-label and you will find “contains preservatives 220”.
The problem the sailors faced was once rounding the horn of Africa most of the supplies were drunk. So they decided to plant vineyards in southern Africa to replenish the wines for the next leg of the Journey to the East Indies. The Spanish of course thought this was a brilliant plan and copied the same model, which is why around the world we see countries with vineyards that were introduced there by European colonists.
To complete this little bit of History on such a black day in the History of the Netherlands: Our first shipment of Spanish wines are heading towards our shores and we will keep you updated on when it will arrive. In the meantime try our South American wines. Like the Dutch, we have French wines arriving in the next 8 weeks. Bordeaux, Burgundian and beautiful Rhone wines. We have every intention to spoil you for choice. But let us not forget all the beautiful New Zealand wines. What great offers we have!!
Cheers and Enjoy- Michael
hello there Michael.
Brilliant piece of information here, i have to admit this is the first bit of Wine Knowledge i have obtaind. look forward to one day trying some diffrent flavours. all the best.
Doris Garland.
You are welcome Doris. I will try and keep up the information.