1688 days ago

More on Wine, Foodography and Winter Classes

New Zealand School of Food & Wine

For the last few weeks I have been travelling around NZ running a series of Wine Tasting Competitions for the NZ Sommeliers and Wine Professionals for which I am chair. It's been fun putting together a selection of 40 classic wines and preparing sets of questions to test our teams of winelovers.

We have used Kahoot! which has been enormously successful as a electronic quiz platform in these Covid times. It adds the results instantly and takes away the risk of calculation errors plus the backend provides detailed analytics on who got the answers to how many seconds it took to answer correctly. We know that of the 24 teams the highest scores were 75% correct with over 8 teams achieved above 68% correct. I can see we will use this platform for sometime!

It seems that interest in wines and spirits programmes is also bounding upwards and we have had record enrolments for all our wine classes including WSET Wine and Spirit Education Trust from UK.

This week I had the results of the latest WSET Level 2 Certificate in Wine and with a class of 20 students, 60% gained distinction, a pass of over 85%. Exciting.

Our NZQA Certificate in NZ Wine Micro-Credential is also going for strength to strength and we are about to start offering Corporate & Team Building wine options so that you can get together a group of 8 people and we will run a private programme.

New Zealand wines are much more diverse that most people imagine and it's a great thrill to be able to share lesser-known wineries and underrated regions with our participants as they taste through the wine selection. For more information, email admin@foodandwine.co.nz.

Coming up we have the Winter Forage with Riki Bennett which provides an opportunity to explore our native flora along with innovation around urban hāngi kai-cookery techniques. The FOODOGRAPHY Dinner is back and this year our theme is a Midwinter Christmas Dinner. Both events are part of Auckland's Elemental Festival.

On Sunday 1st August, we host the NZ Sommelier of the Year Awards along with wine tasting events and a Gastronomic Dinner prepared by Chef Finn and our students.

Ngā mihi,
Celia Hay

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More messages from your neighbours
7 days ago

Some Choice News!

Kia pai from Sharing the Good Stuff

DOC is rolling out a new tool to help figure out what to tackle first when it comes to protecting our threatened species and the things putting them at risk.

Why does this matter? As Nikki Macdonald from The Post points out, we’re a country with around 4,400 threatened species. With limited time and funding, conservation has always meant making tough calls about what gets attention first.

For the first time, DOC has put real numbers around what it would take to do everything needed to properly safeguard our unique natural environment. The new BioInvest tool shows the scale of the challenge: 310,177 actions across 28,007 sites.

Now that we can see the full picture, it brings the big question into focus: how much do we, as Kiwis, truly value protecting nature — and what are we prepared to invest to make it happen?

We hope this brings a smile!

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21 hours ago

Poll: If we want to reduce speeding, what do you think actually changes driver behaviour? 🛻🚨🚓

The Team from Neighbourly.co.nz

In the Post's article on speeding penalties, the question is asked whether speeding fines are truly about road safety, or are they just a way to boost revenue for the Crown?

What do you think? Should speeding motorists receive speeding fines or demerit points?

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If we want to reduce speeding, what do you think actually changes driver behaviour? 🛻🚨🚓
  • 34% The sting of a fine (Money talks!)
    34% Complete
  • 66% The threat of demerit points (Nobody wants to lose their license!)
    66% Complete
203 votes
8 hours ago

Goldco Antique Buyers in Auckland Region

GOLDCO International Limited

WANTED WANTED WANTED:
Gold • Coins • Watches • Banknotes • Antique • Jewellery • Collectables

The market for many antiques, collectables, vintage watches, artefacts, gold and silver items has been buoyant these past few years. So if you are considering selling any of these or similar items then our specialist buyers would like to make an offer.
Any items will be considered so please don’t be shy and visit one of our venues.

Large or valuable collections? Single items? Downsizing, moving or decluttering? Family not interested? or simply turning unwanted items into cash.

*Immediate payment made *No commission or waiting *Free no obligation appraisal *Onsite security *Please have your bank details handy

Whether you have a large and valuable collection or a single item of broken jewellery please take this opportunity to see us at a venue near you.

See us at a venue near you - See venues here:

Goldco Antique Buyers | Member NZNDA | website email: goldco@xtra.co.nz | Ph: 0800 105 228
Find out more

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