A wine named for a dog trained to save lives will raise money so other dogs can be trained to help prolong lives.
The Zeffer Bendigo pinot noir is the brainchild of Wanaka winemaker Jen Parr who came up with the idea after her beloved 10-year-old Missy, a Labrador-mix, died in 2018.
"I adopted her when she was 2 and she was a big part of my life. She was a true wine dog, [she] came to the winery with me every day."
While she had never wanted to make her own wine, being happy to create wines for Valli, when the opportunity to use some grapes from Bannockburn in a wine came, she took it.
"It was my thing, I didn’t think about the wine. Normally I think so much about everything. This was like ‘I’ll just do what I feel’."
Tasting the wine, she decided it was too good to blend it away so approached her boss Grant Taylor about marketing the wine and donating the proceeds to a dog shelter.
"So Missy was born and sold out within a couple of months. It was a really nice connection with people. We don’t normally connect with dog lovers."
That was supposed to be that until Parr looked at a section of grapes at the Waitaki vineyard which stood out.
"It didn’t really suit the Valli Waitaki but again I thought it would be a shame to blend it away."
So she again approached her boss about doing another dog wine as his dog Fifi had come from the Waitaki shelter they donated to with Missy’s wine.
"It was about the joy of rescuing a dog through a shelter."
Then in 2021 she decided to do another wine and had heard about K9 Medical Detection NZ in Mosgiel, which trains dogs in the early detection of cancer. She thought it would be the perfect recipient of proceeds from another "dog wine".
Parr visited the facility and was "blown away" by the work they do and the similarities between their training and the work her husband’s dog Zeffer did as a search and avalanche rescue dog. Zeffer, who is 11 years old now, spends most of his time with Parr at the winery.
"It seemed the synergies were there."
It also enabled her to make a wine using 100% of the whole grape cluster, stalks and all, which helps the mouth feel, fragrance and ageability of the wine.
"It’s something I’ve always wanted to do, it makes a big structure wine for a big dog."
They have also planned a fourth wine to be named for one of the K9 dogs Levi, one of the first detection dogs trained.
"It was born of something personal but it has become way more than that. It’s been really special to make wine that is different to what we normally do and Valli lovers get something a bit outside our flagship wines but, more importantly, to be able to give back through the love of what we do."
Zeffer is being released on November 3 at a charity dinner hosted by Parr at Balmac No7 in Dunedin.
TO SEE
Dog Charity Dinner, Balmac No7, November 3.
