EIT’s Certificate in Grapegrowing and Winemaking Scholarship is back.

A new world of appreciation and pleasure opened up for Linda Tatare when she was awarded the scholarship to study EIT’s Certificate in Grapegrowing and Winemaking.

While much of her career was in banking, she decided in her mid-50s that it was time for a change of career.

“I love the garden, I love tending anything that grows and produces. When the EIT Tairāwhiti Rural Studies unit was being established at Stout Street I lived around the corner, and I always wanted to study there. In 2013 I got the scholarship which made it possible. The classes really brought what I knew about wine together. I loved every minute of it.”

“It enabled someone like me who’s not entitled to the study grant and weekly payments that younger people are, to understand, appreciate and make really good quality wine.”

She particularly enjoyed the access the certificate course gave her to the experience of EIT Viticulture and winemaking tutor, Brent Laidlaw.

“His experience as a winemaker of many years is shared with students.”

Linda not only made really good wine, she made a style to suit her family and friends tastes.

“I don’t want to generalise, but Māori like a bit of spice and sweetness. I wanted to see how far I could push that, and so Brent and I had a number of debates about that. To up the spice you soak the extracted fruit on the skins longer, adding a little acid to help balance the sweetness. I left it on the skins for longer than most would want to, to the delight of friends and family. They like the spice and didn’t realise wine could have that – really ripe fruit offering up all its perfumes yet spicy too. It is extraordinary on the palate.”

She began with her granddaughter and her friends to see if wine could be an alternative to RTDs for them.
“Along with wine comes a different way of thinking about how and where alcohol is consumed. Wine with food enhanced their experience.”

Her first effort in 2014 won bronze in the Student Section of the Hawke’s Bay A & P Bayleys Wine Awards. She won silver in 2015 with grapes from Repongaere Road at Patutahi.

“They were very ripe low-cropped and full of flavour. They were just the most beautiful grapes, and produced a really nice wine. Again I pushed it with the amount of grapes and time on skin contact and was very pleased with the result.”