Wine & Cheese Tasting
A field trip to Maison Vauron with our Diploma Cookery and hospitality students where we enjoyed a cheese and wine tasting.
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The Cheese
• Tomme de Chevre Cendree – raw goats milk from the Loire Valley. A cheese of smooth cream, mushroom with refreshing acidity
• Brie de Meaux, ripe, delicate, and always easy to like.
• Abbaye De Citeaux – a washed rind cheese of unpasteurised cows milk cheese produced in an Abbey in Bourgogne Montbeliarde cows. Funky and a bit wild on the nose but rich and creamy on the palate.
• Gruyère from Switzerland with butter and toasted nuts. So easy to eat more and more.
• Roquefort, the famous sheep’s milk cheese in the town of Roquefort-sur-Soulzon must lead the game of best blue. Creamy, feral but with good acidity and a long lingering finish.
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The wines
• Domain Roland Lavantureux Chablis AOC 2019
Green apple and lemon with crisp acidity
• Domain Jacqueson 1er Cru 2019 a Pinot Noir from the Bourgogne appellation of
Mercurey with notes of black cherries and plum, mushroom, autumn leaves.
• Petit Guiraud Sauternes 2019 second of wine Chateau Guiraud, ranked in the 1855 classification of Barsac and Sauternes. Ripe notes of Pineapple, honey. Dried apricots, sweet spices.
Christmas Eve busiest shopping day of the year with more than 500,000 sales
Busiest shopping day of the year
Peak time 12 noon-1 pm - 563,303 transactions
Per second peak - 167 transactions
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Number of sales beats Black Friday, but lowest Christmas Eve in six years
Christmas Eve has been the busiest shopping day of the year with 9,745 sales a minute at its peak.
Payments company Worldline says noon to 1pm saw 563,303 sales recorded on its network, down by about 7 percent on a year ago.
The company's network covers about three-quarters of the electronic terminals in operation.
Worldline did not have a dollar value for spending, but the peak number of transactions was the lowest for the past six years and well shy of the record 679,436 in 2019, before the pandemic.
Earlier this month it noted rising sales in the first three weeks of the month, but they remained 1.3 percent lower than 2024, with most parts of the country trailing the previous year's spending.
Official data from Stats NZ to the end of November showed a small rise in spending on the previous month, to 1.6 percent higher for the year.
Retail spending has been subdued as households have remained cautious because of high prices and a slow benefit from lower interest rates, and as well as concerns about the soft labour market.
However, recent surveys have shown improving consumer sentiment with ANZ bank's monthly report showing confidence at its highest level in four years.
Boxing Day is traditionally the country's favourite shopping day, but with Black Friday spending also softer this year the amount going through retailers' terminals may also be down on a year ago.
Adding a dampener to consumer spending may be the recent rises in longer term fixed mortgage rates because of higher wholesale rates.
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Poll: Is it ok to regift something that you have been given?
🎁 Holiday Gift Chat!
Do you ever regift?
What’s your take on asking for a receipt if a gift doesn’t fit?
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79.2% Yes! It's better to regift what I don't need
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20.8% No. It's the thought and effort that matters
Scam Alert: Fake information regarding December Bonuses from MSD
The Ministry of Social Development is reporting that fake information is circulating about new ‘December bonuses’ or ‘benefit increases’
If you get suspicious communication, please contact Netsafe.
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