Up the Gondola with a glass of Champagne in my hand.

Up the gondola with a glass of champagne in my hand and I’m on top of the world – surrounded by the indescribable beauty of The Remarkables mountains ringing the lake (Wakitipu) at Queenstown, New Zealand.

It’s the final night of the Pinot Noir Celebration of the Central Otago region – the climax of an intense two and a half days of homage to the wines of this increasingly important region. There’s a magical element to the” terroir”- the rich mineral soils of this former goldmining area, developing the regional identity further each year, as the vines age and the makers embrace the land.

We tasted the wine of the twenty four participating companies – in a couple of hours the first morning – 9am and it’s taste and spit (and talk); we’ve conflabbed with the winemakers over lunch (I was lucky enough to enjoy the hospitality of owner Nigel Greening and winemaker Blair Walter at the celebrated Felton Road winery in Bannockburn); we’ve tasted the wines of thirteen extra wineries in the magnificent setting of Mt Soho in Arrowtown; and partied with the winemakers over dinner. We’ve familiarized ourselves with evocatively-named wineries such as: Wooing Tree, Three Miners, Wild Earth, Desert Heart, (actor Sam Neill’s) Two Paddocks, Sleeping Dogs (named after the first film of owner Roger Donaldson), Shaky Bridge, Pisa Moorings and Judge Rock.

We’ve listened to experts such as Allen Meadows alias “Burghound’ – one of the world’s leading commentators on Burgundy and Jean-Pierre de Smet recently retired winemaker and director of Domaine de l’Arlot, keeper of the cultural heritage of the Association de l’Abbaye de Saint-Vivant – home of the original Burgundy vineyards.

As we listened to Jean-Pierre telling us the history and gazed longingly at the four Burgundies we were about to sample –a flight of 2004 Romanee-Saint-Vivant (How long can we hold out – my hand kept creeping towards the glass!), there was much talk of the parcels of land from which the prized drop is made. We watch a misty film of a horse and plough working the vineyard (they’re going back to organic) and the romantic interior of the Abbaye – and it dawned on me that these parcels of land are the same size as my newly acquired home block in Central Victoria, Australia! Olive-growing neighbours tell me that the land and soils are rich – and it’s also an old goldmining area. I could be sitting on a fortune. The estimated value of the four glasses facing me is around $AUD4,000.00. Burgundy beware! (and Central Otago!). Drummond may yet rise!