Clyde is celebrating its mouthwatering present alongside its eye-catching past, Janice Murphy writes.
Tucked away between rocky hillsides, in a picturesque village alongside a river, the winemakers of the region have come together to show off their new releases for the year.
On the lawn beside an ivy-covered stone building in the centre of town, they have set up their displays and are eager to talk about their recent vintages to interested customers.
But we are not in the Loire, or Alsace, we are in the historic Otago town of Clyde, where during Labour Weekend the community gets together in an event called Cuisine@Clyde to celebrate the region's wines, food and heritage.
And there is so much to celebrate, from the area's gold-mining past to today's gold-medal wines, from wild meats cooked in a wine barrel to the wild thyme that scents the air and turns the hills purple.
The weekend began with a evening food market in the village selling everything from olive oil to ice cream.
Then, over the next three days, came masterclasses from renowned chefs, the BBQ Challenge, in which local teams make a meal in half an hour using ingredients from a mystery box, and a degustation dinner in which each course is matched with a local wine.
Not to mention a walking tour of some of Clyde's fabulous homes, both historic and brand-new.
We stayed in the Hartley Homestead, an elegant historic home offering bed and breakfast, and our hosts, Melanie and Rex Eade, were both involved in organising the festival.
This meant they were busy all weekend, but they still found time to host us as though we were long-lost friends. Even gentle Molly the dog made us feel at home, curling up outside our door in readiness in case anyone needed a canine companion.
Sadly, since I love making cheese, I missed Saturday morning's masterclass with Angela McKeen, who is setting up an artisan cheesemaking business just outside Alexandra.
My first engagement was not strictly part of the festival, an invitation-only tasting of 37 wines from the Alexandra district. Each vineyard submitted two and it took us two hours to sip, swirl and (sadly, in most cases) spit our way through.
Twenty-two of them were pinot noir, and I was left with a great appreciation of how good they can be in this region, and how hard the job of a wine taster is. All that spitting!
In the evening came the BBQ challenge at The Post Office Cafe. Eight teams of locals cooked off against each other and the clock and in between, the audience ate delicious canapes, a buffet dinner and dessert, as well as tasting some of the barbecue dishes. Peta Mathias was the judge and the winning dishes were picture perfect.
Mathias' masterclass next morning was a revelation and my new favourite dessert is chocolate and olive oil mousse with sea salt. However, her wonderful singing has lingered longer in my memory than any of her recipes.
After sampling all her delicious food, you would not have needed lunch before the afternoon's new-release tasting. This was such a civilised event, as wine tastings should be.
Twenty-five dollars bought you a tasting glass and entry to the lawn at Olivers. Music played and there were local goat cheeses and bread to try at each stall.
It really was the shop window for the 19 Alexandra basin winegrowers there, many of which are not open to the public or are open by appointment only. And if you called at the Two Paddocks stall, Sam Neill might have poured you a taste of his wares.
It was impossible to try them all, even asking for extra-small serves. They were too good to waste but too many to drink if you wanted to stay in condition for the evening's wine and food-matching dinner. This year it was at Clyde Bistro, with Michelin-starred chef Alan Brown.
Wines to match each course were chosen by wine adviser Raymond Chan (a good old Dunedin boy) and wine writer and educator Jo Bursynska. It is hard to imagine what would go with a dessert of yoghurt pannacotta and rhubarb, but the Perseverance Estate Pinot Cousins ice wine they selected was perfect.
Breakfast was a bit superfluous the next morning after all that eating and drinking but Melanie's signature savoury egg dish proved impossible to resist.
A stroll along the riverbank in the morning sun was the perfect way to burn off some calories before the next masterclass. Gold-panners and fishermen were chasing their catches and it was a very pleasant place to while away some time until the fish masterclass with Masterchef runners-up Bec Stanley and Jaime Stodler.
And the food part of the weekend wound up with another masterclass, this time on the ingenious method of barrel cooking developed by Wild Earth head chef David Harrison, with a focus on local ingredients and wild foods.
But there was another surprise treat in store. Billed as ''@yourtable - themed table settings'', this walking tour was actually a great chance to see inside some of the lovely homes of Clyde and to meet their owners. The beautiful table settings were a bonus.
And with that, Cuisine@Clyde was over. This town's past is rooted in gold-mining but with such excellent events, its future looks pretty golden too.
- Janice Murphy attended Cuisine@Clyde with support from Tourism Central Otago.
