Wine

At Ambeli, we’re bringing wine back home, where the heart is.

I have heartfelt principles around wine-service that have grown from serving alongside an amazing host of Chefs and Waiters, and also from the intimate insight into the soil taught to me by my father.
I grew up in the Marlborough Sounds on an already ancient estate where in a breath I could smell not only virgin Beeches with their distinctive black boles and a honeyed aroma in their air about them; but also mature oaks that stood with their heads together like old men playing backgammon, their bronze leaf litter the memory of truffle and good dark earth. So between these two worlds, both truly indigenous, and distinctly European, my land invested in me a sensitivity that I am still paying forward to this day.

I differ from most in the service of wine in that I have cheerfully resisted the “doctrine” and “dogma” of the wine world, as I see it a culture of intellect and prestige. For me, and those I have taught, we prefer to relate to wine in terms of those memories and reactions that the smells, flavours and textures provoke.
This has created a relationship with wine at Ambeli that buds from applicability -everyone can relate to the imagery of that ancient apple tree at the back of an old farmhouse, and the drying attack of the juice of its hard flesh fruit; and so anyone can relate to the bottle of Riesling Spätlese in my hands.

This is the freedom and joy at the heart of every guesture of service at Ambeli, and most notably in our wine-service -that of people in conversation with people. For where the Lore and Doctrine of wine are able to relate what one can expect from a bottle: the spirit of the wine, of the land that raised it, and the hands that crafted it are lost in the generic choice of words, and for many of us there is a self-defensive reaction to the confrontation of the jargon around wine.
In the vulnerability to feel moved by a wine, as music might do for us, we can taste and feel the pleasure of that long lost summer, recall the ambience of a place, remember that face. Afterall at Ambeli, we’re bringing wine back home, where the heart is.

This list represents both the individual bottles that I beleive in so much, but also reflects the people and especially the places that the wine within represents.
Bless!
Shae