Wine Guru Impressed

 Roger Jones is renowned in the UK for a long list of reasons. He has held a Michelin Star for the last eight years, is the owner of The Harrow at Little Bedwyn, is the Wine Consultant for the on-trade magazine The Caterer, sits on the Decanter World Wine Awards specialising in Australia and New Zealand, sits on the Sommelier Wine Awards among others and contributes to numerous publications.

At the age of 21 he held the position as youngest Head Chef to lead State banquets at The Guildhall in London and has catered for the Queen, various Heads of State and has also worked at 10 Downing Street and Royal Households.

At his own restaurant, he has one of the largest new world wine lists in the UK, which includes 100 from New Zealand.

Yet despite all those credentials, Jones has never visited New Zealand, until November last year. What he discovered left him wanting more.

“For someone like myself I get to lots of other countries, but this is my first time here,” he said. “To see this face to face is amazing. I know it is easy to say that this is a trip of a lifetime, but for me it really is. It’s quite emotional in a sense, because it is so exciting to see something completely new to me.”

While in Marlborough Jones was astounded by the “village” like atmosphere of the region – something he was not expecting.

“I thought Marlborough was going to be quite industrial, like the Barossa Valley, with massive oil refinery style tank farms. But I was surprised; it is very boutique and that is not a word I would have used about Marlborough before. It has much more of a village sort of aspect.”

But it was the sunshine he experienced while in the country, (despite some bitterly cold days that saw frosts hit parts of the country) that provided him with the most important lesson.

“I think everywhere in New Zealand there is this sunshine, continuous hot penetrating sun. I realised that is why the flavours we are getting from the wines are so bright, so intense, so clean and (it explains) the freshness we are seeing.”

Actually seeing the country for himself, talking to the winemakers in their own environment, has been incredibly valuable to him. He says it will impact on the decisions he makes in the future about what wines he will recommend.

“When you are tasting in situ it is obviously going to taste better, but now it is my job to take it back to the UK and tell the story and get that story over to people. We need to be advocates of this land. It is quite spectacular and the reflection of that is coming through in your wines.”

In his role as a consultant, Jones is responsible for food and wine matching, and says once he has the list together, he advises staff on how to sell those wines, encouraging them  to move away from the norm.

“Chardonnay for example is great with Indian food, whereas people would normally say that Riesling and Gewurztraminer are the best match.

“We try and push a lot more reds with seafood, otherwise sales of reds won’t happen.  Men more often than not will want a bottle of red, and go into a restaurant and have a steak, because they think that goes best with a red. We say, no, you can have a red with seafood, no problem at all.”

That sort of thinking outside the square has worked well for Jones, and is one of his attractions to other restaurants wanting to make their mark in the highly competitive food and wine sector.

While in New Zealand he visited all the major wine growing regions, and was busy on social media, praising the wines, food and people he met. Back in the UK he is providing The Caterer magazine with articles on his trip and has been asked to pitch some ideas on New Zealand to Decanter.

His extremely positive response to this part of the world is sure to be carried over in those articles. Which just goes to show how important it is to have key influencers on the ground here in New Zealand, where they can see for themselves the true beauty of our wine.