Italian Festival at Heron’s Flight

Italian Festival at Heron’s Flight Labour Weekend 2007

Heron’s Flight vineyard in Matakana will be holding an Italian Festival over Labour Weekend to celebrate their 20th anniversary in Matakana and the much awaited release of their 2005 Sangiovese. The festival will run from October 18th to the 22nd and feature Italian foods, Heron’s Flight Italian varietal wines and live music on the Saturday and Sunday afternoons.

The festival will start with their famous Long Italian Table dinner on Thursday, October 18th, and continue on through to Monday. They will be open all weekend for breakfast & lunch, and on the Friday, Saturday and Sunday evenings for dinner.

Heron’s Flight is the only NZ wine producer exclusively growing Italian grapes: Sangiovese and Dolcetto. This festival will celebrate the release of the Sangiovese from the outstanding vintage of 2005 with free tastings all weekend, and a great promotional offer of a free bottle of Dolcetto with every 5 bottles of Sangiovese purchased.

Also available will be a fantastic tasting platter of the Sangiovese and Dolcetto accompanied by a Dolcetto infused venison terrine, bresaola with ricotta, and a vine ash rubbed pania cheese- all for $20 a platter including the wine.

Mary and David initially planted Cabernet Sauvignon and Chardonnay in 1987. But after an epiphany with a bottle of Italian wine in 1993, they decided to specialize in Italian varieties, which happen to be particularly suited to Matakana’s clay soil.

“Our soil and climate brings out the earthy tannins and full bodied flavours of the Italian wines” says Hoskins.

“We have developed a food style to complement the wines, “ says Evans, “we specialize in rustic Mediterranean style cooking which makes the most of fresh local ingredients including the herbs from our heritage kitchen gardens, our own olive oil from the trees planted in the vineyard and verjus from our grapes.”

Heron’s Flight, which was one of the first to be established in the now booming winegrowing region of Matakana, is located on Sharp Rd, just before the village of Matakana. Bookings are strongly recommended.

ENDS

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