Undone doing the Blind Chicken Central Otago on top in organic viticulture

ON a recent Sunday, 16 wine enthusiasts sat down to engage their brains and palates at the annual Blind Chicken winetasting competition. As per tradition, last year’s winner, Alastair McLaren, was host this year.

As the afternoon unfolded, three white wines, five reds and one dessert wine were poured blind with a series of multichoice questions to discern their identities. Early on, local wine lover Paul Templer and yours truly crept into the lead, maintaining a neckandneck battle through the wines. A stumble on wine No 8 proved my undoing with Paul going on to a welldeserved win.

The final tally saw Paul secure his first Blind Chicken win with 34 points. Yours truly was second on 32 points, a very excited Nicola McLaren came through well in the latter wines to grab third spot on 30 points, with Brendon Woodford one point back in fourth.

Paul becomes the holder of the coveted Blind Chicken trophy for the next year and has the honour of organising the 2020 event.

The Central Otago Winegrowers Association (COWA) completed a survey following the 2019 harvest, which confirmed that 17% of vineyard land in the region is fully certified in organic/ biodynamic production. On top of that, a further 6% is in the midst of the threeyear organic conversion process.

I contacted COWA chairman Nick Paulin to see how that 17% figure compares with the rest of the country. The latest figures he had show Nelson at nearly 9% organic, while Waipara was nearly 8%. By comparison, the industry powerhouse regions of Marlborough and Hawke’s Bay were just 3.8% and 1.9% organic respectively.

With organics a longterm goal for the COWA, support from Organics Aotearoa New Zealand (OANZ) and Organic Winegrowers New Zealand (OWNZ) should see this figure continue to rise.