URBN VINO is the wine venture of Central Otago winemaker Brendan Seal, who is arguably better known for his ‘The Writer’s Block’ wines. Brendan developed his urban winery concept which saw fruition last year when he made a Pinot Noir wine from Central Otago fruit, in a heritage building in Dunedin. The concept has been successfully conducted overseas, and also conspicuously with craft beer where breweries are sprouting up with regularity with city confines. In New Zealand, the only other similar venture is Tony Bish’s urban winery in Napier, which opened two months ago.
Brendan intends to make his urban winery very interactive, with personally guided tours for smaller, intimate groups, taking them through the winemaking process, the clientele being hands-on in doing so, in addition to tasting out of barrel, something that is normally reserved for serious trade customers. By doing this, Brendan aims to remove the mystique of winemaking. This will no doubt forge a very strong relationship with his customers. And of course, being in the city, the URBN VINO wines will be much more accessible to his market.
In developing the project, Brendan was crowd-funded, and sales of an Urbn Vino Central Otago Pinot Noir 2015 contributed to reaching the total very quickly. (Click here to see more about his project to date, and here for my reviews of the wine.) Brendan aims to move his base of operations from Central Otago to Dunedin in January, in time for the 2018 vintage.
Again, to aid development of his URBN VINO project he will offer a 2016 Urbn Vino Central Otago Pinot Noir, with a beautiful and unique label, which I was privileged to see before release. It cleverly ties the Pinot Noir vine with the city of Dunedin. The wine was made from hand-picked fruit in Central Otago which was transported to Dunedin for hand-plunging and pressing in a basket press in the middle of a heritage building in Dunedin undergoing renovation. The wine was barrelled in Dunedin then taken back to Central Otago for maturation and bottling. (There is another Pinot Noir in the works that may end up being a ‘Reserve’ bottling of Urbn Vino 2016.) I review the aforementioned wine here. www.thewritersblock.co.nzwww.urbnvino.nz
