After almost two years planning and meticulous restoration a world-first novel mobile tasting experience is providing a new opportunity to promote premium New Zealand wines to locals and international visitors at major events.
Developed by Rick Nelson, owner of The Winery, Queenstown’s premiere wine store; the Winedub is an original 1958 split screen VW single cab pickup that has been fully restored over 15 months. However, this is no ordinary restoration.
The Winedub is kitted out to host tastings of up to 46 wines at events. Where a VW would usually have room for cargo, the Winedub’s precious cargo is the finest, quality New Zealand wine. Each of the 46 wines for tasting uses the famous Enomatic wine serving technology that preserves wine flavour ensuring every taste is as fresh as the first.
Nelson is thrilled with the restoration. “There were times over the last two years when I thought what have we done? Certainly if when we embarked on this project we knew what we know now, we probably never would have started!”
“We began with the vision of creating a way to take The Winery tasting out of the Queenstown store. So we’ve created a mobile tasting experience which is able to travel across the country introducing people to 46 iconic New Zealand wines, showing the diversity and quality of the local wine industry.”
The Winedub features an innovative serving and payment option too. Guests use a “smart” card that allows them to serve tastings of the wines they choose and sample a collection of New Zealand’s finest wines from the regions of Central Otago to Waiheke Island and everything in between.
The Winedub had its first outing at the International Food Design Conference in Dunedin last week, and Rick is looking forward to sharing the experience. “Too often I’ve been at wine tastings which are sterile, serious and lack the joy wine is designed to evoke. What’s more the logistics only allow service of a few wines. The Winedub creates a sense of fun and playfulness, just like at The Winery in Queenstown wine tasters can linger and chat as they try an extensive array of New Zealand wines and styles from Sauvignon Blanc to Syrah.”
This week the Winedub will return to its Queenstown base at The Winery, from where it will host tastings at conferences and events in the resort town. Rick hopes the Winedub will travel to events across the country and he is already planning a road trip through New Zealand later this year.
