I hate to admit it, but this year was the first time I managed to make it to the Clyde Wine and Food Festival as we always seem to spend Easter somewhere else.
Now in its 12th year, it was well worth the visit, with all the local wineries, including a few I hadn't seen for a while, some good food stalls and a few people showing new products.
Held in the main street of Clyde on Easter Sunday, it boasted more than 70 stalls, including some selling crafts, clothing and jewellery.
I couldn't go past Nuno Vilela's stall.
The Portuguese chef and founder of Nuno's restaurant in Alexandra - although he sold it about seven years ago - was cooking seafood on a barbecue. His scallops wrapped in bacon were tender, juicy and delicious with contrasting textures and flavours. When I went back a little later to try the prawns or mussels, they had sold out of everything!
The scallops were just the thing to go with one of the full, minerally gewurztraminers from the Alexandra area such as the rich Three Miners or the lively one from Hinton.
There were several other stalls selling seafood - whitebait patties and crayfish from the West Coast and salmon from Stewart Island.
A little further down the rows of stalls was the tiny Clyde Village winery whose vineyard is behind the town. Besides their wines, they had an unusual wine-vein cheese made by Retro Organics near Gore, a flavoursome cheddar marbled with red from Clyde Village pinot noir.
Nearby were Dougal and Neroli Laidlaw of Shingle Creek Chevon, showing their goat meat and sausages. Their hardy Boer goats come originally from South Africa and have adapted well to Central. Goat meat goes well with Alexandra pinot - something like the lively, slightly peppery Two Paddocks Picnic pinot noir or the spicy 8 Ranges.
There were a couple of portable wood-fired ovens turning out pizzas - Francesca's from Wanaka and Mamma Mia from Dunedin, and The Fridge in Alexandra was doing a roaring trade in large, juicy burgers - delicious but hard to eat with lashings of coleslaw oozing out.
One of the problems at the festival was finding a place to sit to eat. Despite a number of tables and chairs, the crowds ensured it was difficult to get one, and those who did, stayed, sending others out for food and refills.
Several stalls, including the venerable Stonehouse were selling preserves and chutneys, but a new one caught my eye, the Naked Scotsman. Wearing a kilt of Dunedin tartan, Sandy Stoddart was demonstrating his preserves in a broad Scots accent. With products like gamekeepers chutney, poachers pickles, blush salad dressing made with strawberries and a delicious whisky marmalade, he describes them as Otago's cheekiest preserves. He makes them in Dunedin and sells them at the Stadium market as well as some shops.
Suzie Wood from Three Bears Food in Cromwell started making oat-based products - muesli, flavoured porridge, cookie mix and crumble topping, and recently expanded to a mulled wine mix - just the thing for winter!It was nice to see three of the early winemakers who have kept a low profile for a few years. Mark Hesson and Dhana Pillai of Leaning Rock had ripe rosa muskat grapes to taste alongside their wines - a reminder that harvest is only a week or two away for most growers. The pinky-grey grapes make a luscious, scented rose.
John and Judy Currie, formerly of Briar Vale have emerged with a new label, True Colours, with a handful of wine varieties from their steep, pocket-sized vineyard above Kelliher Lane - their pinot blanc is weighty and mouthfilling.
Next door were Verdun Burgess and Sue Edwards of Black Ridge. They have some of the oldest vines in the whole region and their old-vine gewurztraminer is outstanding, as is their old-vine riesling. Burgess is inordinately proud of his cabernet sauvignon, the southernmost in the world, he claims, grown on a hot, steep slope. The 08 certainly oozes blackcurrants and has a lively herbal edge, but the Black Ridge Pinot Noir 2010 from the oldest vines is a silky, plummy beauty.
