Overwhelming Donation Response!

Webb's Wine Auction - Raising funds for the Christchurch Earthquake Appeal.

To assist with the nation wide fund raising appeal for Christchurch, Simon Ward, Head of the Fine Wine Department invited New Zealand wine producers to donate wines for the 28 March auction. The response was outstanding, with over 100 lots donated. The highlight of the sale is lot 525 (1) 1975 DRC Romanee-Conti, with a sale estimate between $15,000 - $20,000.

The Central Otago wine region was been incredibly generous, not only offering their own wines, but taking the initiative to invite wineries from the Burgundy region to contribute. As Simon Ward suggests; “the main reason we have seen such extraordinary level of support from Burgundy in France, is that the wine industry is very much a relationship driven business and great friendships are often formed when New Zealander’s go overseas to work in within the wine industry and leave a lasting impression. This is the main reason we have seen such an extraordinary level of support from Burgundy in France.”

Here are some of the explanations that were given to Simon Ward on receiving the donated wines:

RE: The highlight of the sale, lot 525 (1) 1975 DRC Romanee-Conti with a sale estimate between $15,000 - $20,000.
Beginning of August 1971 a hail storm happened, which will reduce the harvest. We had to go in the vineyard with tweezers to remove the dried berries, affected by the hail. After that, a beautiful weather lasted up to the harvest time. This small yield gave an extraordinary maturity to this vintage, and made a “grand millésime”
This bottle of Romanée-Conti 1971 is one of the few that we have in our personal cellar. So we want to support our NZ friends, and it is with pleasure that we offer this bottle, and we hope it will achieve a very high price! I have myself a special relation with NZ where I had 2 times pleasure to “fish-fly” in what is worldwide considered as the most beautiful rivers of the world! Aubert de Villaine, Domaine de la Romanee-Conti.

‘Why we contributed a magnum to the auction? In the early days of harvests of Domaine Dujac, we could hire anyone we wanted to harvest- and we had a host of New Zealand volunteers. We found them to have terrific sense of humors and willing to endure the rigours of picking cheerfully. In 1975 when our first child was born, one of the girls offered to stay on as an au pair. This started a long chain of young women who looked after the little Seysses for a few months each over a number of years. They are now all grown up and mothers themselves- I still correspond with several of them. Our donation is tribute to them. They were excellent ambassadors for New Zealand’. Mme Rosalin, Domaine Dujac

‘After a memorable 6 months journey in NZ in 2009, I’ve been very shocked after the earthquake. I’ve been so welcomed on this island; I met many nice people there, they were very friendly and generous. I hope this auction will help inhabitants to recover. Be sure that during the rugby world cup I’ll be supporting very strongly the all blacks. I choose this wine because it is like your rugby team, big, powerful and with a big personality’ Jean François Mestre, Domaine MICHELOT

Participating wineries:
Rippon Vineyard, Felton Road Wines, Quartz Reef, Spy Valley, Burn Cottage Vineyard, Surveyor Thomson Wines, Northburn Station, Greylands Ridge, Stewart Elms, Rockburn , Mondillo, Mosaïque Bourgogne International.

Webb’s would like to thank all the participating wineries with a special thanks to Nick and Lois Mills of Rippon Vineyard and Sophie Meunier-Confuron at J.J.Confuron, Burgundy.

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