Category Archives: FEATURED ARTICLES (PREVIOUS EDITIONS)

NEW ZEALAND / TRAVEL FEATURE

ClubWest

(To view our May/June 2019 issue of ClubWEST online, click here.)

Fresh food and fine wine essential ingredients to a New Zealand recipe

By Lorraine Simpson

New Zealand is a dream destination. From the crystal waters of the Abel Tasman, to the expanse of Northland’s Ninety Mile Beach, to the mountains surrounding Queenstown — the country knows no shortage of breathtaking scenery.

Visitors can experience the best of it by hiking, lazing at the beach, or soaking up views from a vineyard with a glass of local pinot noir in hand.

As our long winter has come to an end is it time to consider a warmer place to spend next winter?

There’s no bad time to travel to New Zealand, but unless you’re a snow bunny and planning to spend time on the slopes, it’s generally wise to avoid visiting in their winter which is perfect for us Canadians as their summer is our coldest time.

As seasons are opposite to the northern hemisphere, travelers end up leaving the snow to head into beautiful sunny weather.

Though the summers have beautiful weather, early January is also not the best time to visit. It’s common for New Zealanders to take three or four weeks off around the holidays, meaning cities empty out while everyone heads to the beach, and many restaurants and cafes shut down, limiting options for dining, and crowding the beaches. We suggest February and March.

Your New Zealand experience starts the moment you step aboard your flight. Air New Zealand international flights feature New Zealand wines and cuisine. And their friendly, professional crew will make sure you’re comfortable throughout your flight. Experience award-winning service and warm Kiwi hospitality.

New Zealand’s wine and food is amongst the best in the world. Taste is paramount. Talented and innovative chefs combine ingredients freshly harvested from garden, land and sea while Pacific influences, organics and indigenous foods create a unique experience – whether that’s fine dining or casual outdoor meals, cellar door tasting, mingling with the locals at farmers’ markets, or an authentic Māori hangi experience.

Spectacular scenery is just the beginning of the New Zealand experience – aside from the landscape, some of New Zealand’s best kept secrets are of the culinary kind.

For an authentic taste of New Zealand, the intrepid explorer should also be prepared to engage the tastebuds and discover the unique flavours and quirky treats – from chocolate fish to golden kumara – that Kiwis love to come home to.

Of course you’d also expect to taste great wine in NZ and a new batch of luxury hospitality offerings lifts the country’s wine experiences to a new level.

New Zealand is best known for its rugged mountain peaks, deeply carved fiords and sweeping white sand beaches. Now this land of natural contrasts is home to luxury wine experiences in locations as diverse as the sides of cliffs and beside picture-perfect lakes.

Our first stop is Craggy Range, Hawke’s Bay – famed for its distinctive art deco architecture – has buckets of sunshine and a fertile coastal landscape that infuses award-winning wines and gourmet food.

The two-day Craggy Range Ultimate Wine Tour begins with a helicopter tour over Craggy Range vineyards with head winemaker Matt Stafford, who guides the small group as they view vines and the region’s natural landmarks from the air, including Tuki Tuki Valley, the Te Awanga coast and Cape Kidnappers.

Then it’s back to the winery for a personalized tasting and blending session to create your own wine to take home.

The experience can be mixed and matched with a bespoke food and wine event, which begins in the garden and culminates in a personalized three-course meal at Craggy Range’s Terrôir Restaurant.

Food is prepared from a guided food gathering with chef Andrew Saxon. Guests stay in the luxurious four-bedroom lodge and can also fly-fish, walk up Te Mata Peak and play a few rounds of golf. Its warm maritime climate makes Hawke’s Bay comfortable to visit year-round, even on chilly winter mornings when the sun is shining and the cool air has chilled the air temperatures.

Next stop on our wine lovers’ adventure is The Farm at Cape Kidnappers.

It is a 30-minute drive from Napier on the North Island’s east coast but a world away, with its dedication to high-end luxury experience. This is a special place, not only because it reveals panoramic views of New Zealand’s wild east coast at its best, but also because it’s home to just a handful of individual private cottages, so few people can stay at once.

There’s a particular focus on food and wine here. Wine experiences range from wine tastings and appreciation classes in The Farm’s own cellars to full-day excursions exploring the cellars of some of Hawke’s Bay’s best wineries.

If eating freshly harvested oysters, taking a private helicopter tour over the Marlborough Sounds and foraging for your own food appeals, then the Cloudy Bay Winery’s Forage experience is for you.

In between food foraging, there are private vineyard tours, wine tastings, sashimi tastings of local salmon and lunch on the Marlborough Sounds on the way to Tio Point oyster farm to harvest shellfish fresh from the sea. It also includes a private barrel tasting and blending session at the globally renowned Cloudy Bay Winery – one of the first in New Zealand to make sauvignon blanc. We finish with The Forage dinner, created from the produce collected.

We stay at Dog Point Vineyard’s The Bell Tower, which offers boutique accommodation with outstanding views across Marlborough’s Wairau Valley.

Next we travel to Brancott Estate Heritage Centre overlooking the country’s largest wine region, Marleborough which has vistas to the North Island. With one of the most outstanding vineyard restaurants in the country, Brancott specializes in fresh regional produce and wine tastings including wines only available at the cellar door.

There is an exclusive bespoke private dining room catering for up to 18 guests, or a wine tasting tailored to your tastes. Take a vineyard cycling tour or up the splendour with a helicopter flight over the vineyards followed by a wine tasting.

A premium wine tasting experience features Brancott’s top-flight wines, led by one of the estate’s experts. We stay nearby in the newly opened five-star Marlborough Lodge, a stately residence set in expansive heritage gardens.

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For more info and to join one of our hosted group trips to Portugal check out the following website, www.conciergetravelgroup.ca, or call ClubWest’s travel guru, Lorraine Simpson, for all your travel need 289-273-8095.

Game changer

ClubWest

(To view our March/April 2019 issue of ClubWEST online, click here.)

John Hall’s passion changed an industry, a company and lives

By Mike Williscraft

It is rare in this age of global economy that one person can move the needle in an entire sector.

It is even more rare that one person could reset and refocus an entire industry while setting it on a brand new track to world prominence.

Grimsby’s John Hall is that rare individual.

As a youth growing up in Windsor, Hall knew from an early age what he wanted to do with his life.

“I grew up in Windsor and always wanted to be a whisky maker. Hiram Walker (Distillery) was in Windsor. They never wanted to hire me as a whisky maker, which turned out to be a good thing,” said Hall with a laugh.

As with many things in business and in life, timing is everything, but when Hall decided to invest in Reider Distillery in 1992 there was nothing to indicate anything positive in the company or the whisky industry – just the opposite, in fact.

As described by Hall in a 2009 interview for Grown in the Garden of Canada:

The History of the Fruit industry in Grimsby:

“The facility here originally was strictly a distillery that had started back in the mid-70s. A fellow by the name of Otto Reider, who actually immigrated from Switzerland, was the owner. When he came to the Niagara area, he discovered all of the glorious fruit that grew in the area, the cherries, the strawberries, the plums, and the grapes and decided that this would be a great place to build a distillery and make eaux de vie’s (a.k.a. Schnapps), eaux de vie’s being distilled alcohol that is made from fruit. Eaux de vie’s are very popular in Europe, but not so popular in North America. So Otto Reider actually made some excellent, excellent eaux de vie’s out of Ontario grown fruit but his only problem was the marketing of it. Because people in Canada drank whisky and vodka and rum but they didn’t drink eaux de vie’s such as Kirsh and Slivovice and Poire Williams, he had limited success and unfortunately the company was ailing. In 1992, I came across it and discovered that it would make an excellent winery as well as a distillery, so I invested in it and changed the name to Kittling Ridge.”

Now, one may think from that start the rest was history, but the fact is, the work had not even begun.

When Hall acquired Reider, it came with another “acquisition”.

“John likes to joke that I came with the building,” says Bill Ashburn, who started at Reider after studying chemical engineering at Niagara College and gaining some wine industry experience at Jordan & Ste. Michelle’s Cellars.

While expanding the whisky distilling aspect of the business was central to his long-term plans, Hall knew the business plan had to be better rounded.

“He started the winery, Kittling Ridge, with the premise it would provide the cash flow to allow us to create whiskies which take many years to mature,” Ashburn recalled, noting Hall brought an extra ingredient to what would prove a phenomenally successful recipe.

“What John brought was passion and he tends to bring passion out in all those who work with him. He could get you to do things you never thought possible. He never has a down day. He just takes things as they come and keeps moving along,” said Ashburn.

“Other distilleries like Potters in St. Catharines and Corbyville in Corby were closing. Everyone thought, including me, those closures were the death knell for the industry. John thought differently and he did something about it.”

Indeed, history shows, 1992 was the low point in Canada’s whisky distilling industry.

“Canada had peaked in the whisky business in 1982 with eight million cases sold. In 1992, that had declined by half. They had lost sales of four million cases,” noted Hall.

“Distilleries were closing left and right. There were seven distilleries left in Canada. Today, there are nearly 200 with about 120 of them doing whisky. I raised the bar on Canadian whisky. I was just starting my business when the industry was at its lowest, but Forty Creek was the third largest distillery of premium deluxe whiskies within 18 years.”

To Hall, the core reason for this was quite simple – the industry had not attempted to reinvent itself for more than half a century.

“I intended to bring excitement and innovation to the whisky category. It was dull and boring. There was nothing going on. There was nothing new. I wanted to shake things up and regenerate it,” said Hall.

“1939 was the last time anything new was introduced. That was Crown Royal.”

With the bones of his plan starting to set, developing a solid infrastructure of staff and marketing were other steps in the process.

“From 1992-99 were the formative years. With the winery creating the cash flow, we were able to lay down some great whisky stocks,” said Ashburn, who remains Forty Creek’s master blender

“What a lot of people don’t know is that from 92-99 we were selling a lot of whisky to Taiwan through part of the business called Canadian Company, which preceded John. It already existed, but he took it internationally.”

With early stocks maturing while the business continued to grow and evolve, Forty Creek’s staff was getting things done, while Hall took to the road in a literal door-to-door effort to drive sales.

“Product development has always been my passion. John gave me the opportunity to be inventive in all aspects of product development in this company,” said Ashburn.

“John was on the road far more than he was here. He put great trust in his staff. When he was out on the road, he trusted things would keep moving at home.”

Hall’s tales from the road are as legendary as his accomplishments. Sitting with major liquor store retailers in Florida, stopping in at countless bars and giving free taste tests in New Orleans was part of his routine for many years.

The hours and work were relentless, but with purpose, says Davin de Kergommeaux, author of the award winning book, Canadian Whisky: The New Portable Expert and founder of the Canadian Whisky Awards.

“He went around making sure people got to know Forty Creek and Canadian Whisky. He did something that no other distiller had done. He started up his Program to promote his whisky, with a very very long vision, he wasn’t looking for immediate pay off,” said de Kergommeaux.

Part of the groundwork was a lot of miles, driving and walking.

“He did things like walking up and down Bourbon Street pouring his whisky for the bartenders so they would know who was behind the label. Now, if you go up and down Bourbon Street, Forty Creek is in every bar because took he time to talk to all those people. He did the same thing in other places in Texas, for example, where he would find out where bartenders hung out after work and he would pour for them.”

“He treated everyone with the same welcome and respect. John also invited people to visit his distillery when no others were doing this. He set up the shop and he did tours so people could actually see what was going on. People started to take ownership and what has happened over the years is that this group of people, and it is a huge group, is almost like a Forty Creek cult. There is great loyalty there.”

But all the customer service and groundwork would not have mattered had the quality not been in the bottle to back up what Hall was selling.

“John came into the Canadian whisky industry at a time when distilleries were closing, and Canadian whisky didn’t have a very good reputation. People had made very unfair assumptions about Canadian whisky. John wanted to stick up for himself,” said de Kergommeaux.

To nail down that part of his overall plan, Hall showed great patience.

“First of all, he did not release his whisky until he was really sure that it was a good representation of him and his distillery. So when he started distilling, I can remember when – maybe 20-plus years ago – it was about 10 years before he released his first whisky.

“His strategy was that he would have whisky at the same price point as others but his would always be a little bit bigger and a little bit more flavourful. He succeeded in that. Then he set out to connect with
other distillers, drinkers and influencers,” said de Kergommeaux.

“He started doing the special releases every year, and nobody was doing that, nobody at all. These special releases have really have become quite sought after. The very first one was called Small Batch. I’ve seen some of the small batch go on the market for $2,500 a bottle.”

But, again, the thinking behind the growth plan was intensely strategic, well thought out and timed perfectly, de Kergommeaux added.

“John addressed the American market very intelligently. Other people were shipping down mixing whisky to sell at $14 a bottle or less. John really

went after the drinkers. I remember I was talking to him at one time and John said he worked about 200 days that year showing and pouring whisky for people.”

And the years of effort rooted Forty Creek on a steady path of growth and success. That success not only transformed the business but placed Canadian whisky on the world stage.

“We were seeing consistent double-digit growth. From 2009 to 2014, the whisky industry only saw three per cent growth but Forty Creek had 65 per cent growth. We were responsible for 34 per cent of all the industry growth over a five-year period,” said Hall.

“I had always hoped for success but I never thought there would be a day when I was dancing with the giants of the whisky business.”

Among the giants with which Hall was dancing was the Campari Group, the world’s sixth largest distilling company.

Appleton Rum, Wild Turkey, Grand Marnier and Sky Vodka are all included in Campari’s stable of products.

After 22 years of growing Kittling Ridge Winery and Forty Creek Distillery from nothing, Hall knew he had done all he could with the company.

“Campari had the machinery and infrastructure to take Forty Creek further – especially in the U.S and Western Canada – with more distribution and more sales people on the road,” said Hall, noting there were several suitors for the business.

While Campari had the internal resources to grow the Forty Creek brand, it also had a much larger marketing budget.

“I never used TV. I used radio, billboards and magazines mainly, but it’s great to see Forty Creek on TV,” noted Hall of the commercials now seen regularly during prime time and major sporting events, which highlights the company’s roots in Grimsby.

“It shows the support for the brand and where it comes from.”

After selling Forty Creek in 2016, Hall stayed on for two years in an advisory capacity and acted as the company’s chairman of the board.

Now, he is enjoying life with his wife, Eileen, his adult children and, as of this past November, five grandchildren.

“I like to go fishing and travel,” said Hall, followed by an extended pause. “The travel is a lot different than it used to be.”

And when he does travel now, he does so as the first inductee into the Canadian Whisky Hall of Fame. This recognition was bestowed upon a surprised Hall last month as part of the Canadian Whisky Awards in Victoria. B.C.

“There is not a checklist of boxes for the hall of fame. The hall is for the people who have made a significant contribution to Canadian whisky,” said de Kergommeaux.

“Somebody like Samuel Bronfman, if he were still alive, or people like that who have really moved the category forward I would think would also be candidates. I think John Hall is the only person today who really qualifies. He is the first inductee and we will add more people as they make their contribution.”

For Ashburn, he was elated to hear the news of Hall’s induction.

“It’s fantastic,” said Ashburn.

“Forty Creek had six of us there to support John. We wanted to be there for him. We wanted to spend some time with him in Vancouver, but no way. The number of small distillers who wanted to get a minute with him, get some advice, we could not get near him.”

And that kind of positive interaction with people, whether industry colleagues or customers in the South Service Road retail shop, is part of what sets Hall apart, Ashburn added.

“Twenty two years I worked with the man, not for, with. It was never a boss/employee relationship. It was a highly collaborative effort and he made me and everyone in the company feel that way,” said Ashburn.

For Hall, he took the honour as he takes most accolades, with his “aw shucks” attitude.

“I was surprised. Davin had just asked me to be the keynote speaker at the 9th annual awards night as far as I knew,” said Hall.

“I was just giving some encouragement and advice to those starting up because it is not easy. It is 24/7. I think it went over pretty well because I was swarmed afterwards. I think the hall of fame induction was quite remarkable.”

Now that Hall’s transition time with Forty Creek is complete, he said he has kicked the tires on a couple of potential business ventures but nothing has clicked.

“It’s nice now, but it took a while to settle down. You don’t go from 100 mph, day-in, day-out and then just stop. It took me a while to slow down. I am enjoying my time now,” said Hall, adding he has a couple of pastimes to keep him busy.

“I like fishing and I have always loved all kinds of music. In the mid-60s I played saxophone in a local band. Today, while very rusty I do get pleasure from playing my saxophone, guitar and ukulele.”

Exquisite art of marquetry

ClubWest

(To view our January/February 2019 issue of ClubWEST online, click here.)

60 Years in the making

By Joanne McDonald

Scratch the veneer from John Sedgwick and you’ll find a man who loves wood.

His Grimsby home is a showcase of award-winning marquetry created on furniture that he has made, a testament to both the ancient art of exquisitely worked veneers and his skill and passion for the work.

His woodworking shop out back is a place of mindfulness where the world disappears in the focus of the wood. Lines of clamps hang from the shop walls with a precision that speaks to his profession as a mechanical engineer.

It appears there are clamps enough to lock down a fort, yet says Sedgwick, gleefully sharing the woodworkers’ universal lament, you can never have too many clamps.

“He who dies with the most clamps wins.”

In the corner sits the piece de resistance – a carousel – 20 years of intricate marquetry in the making and now just eight months short of completion. It is a masterpiece.

Constructed on a mechanically engineered rotating circular platform and expertly overlaid with artful figures and patterns made of gorgeous wood veneers, the carousel now awaits Sedgwick’s eight hand carved Roman soldiers driving horse-drawn chariots to complete the labour of love.

Researched and themed around the ancient Romans, Sedgwick started carving the horses and making the chariots two years ago. He is now working on the tack to drive the teams.

Marquetry is an intricate and labour-intensive technique where different natural colours of wood veneers are carefully cut to fit precisely together, creating a spectacular design in a single sheet or picture.

“Think of paint by numbers with no numbers and no paint, just naturally coloured wood fitted together like a jigsaw puzzle to create a design or pattern,” he says.

Sedgwick is a fine gentleman.

He speaks with the authority of decades dedicated to the art and his enthusiasm retains the delight of the youngster who received his first hobby veneer kit, a Christmas gift from his father when he was 12 years old.

He was born in England, the Village of Kent where everybody knew everybody and “everybody had a hobby that didn’t plug in.”

His father, Harold had the foresight to introduce his son to the fine art, but could hardly have known the enduring joy it would bring.

There was a company in the UK that sold veneers to the

furniture industry. Large sheets were custom supplied and the discarded bits would end up in a dumpster.

An industrious employee saw an opportunity to use the leftover pieces and he developed a kit with all the ingredients to complete a small craft project.

One of the popular hobbies at the time was paint by number kits.

The employee took the paint by number pattern and thought, “what if I cut the veneers and put numbers on them.”

He took small pieces of veneer, stamped numbers according the paint by numbers pattern and packaged them with a scalpel, a bit of sandpaper, and a few basic instructions to make the kits that are still sold to this day.

“The concept of the kit was to show that you can paint any design and any pattern with wood.”

By the age of 16, Sedgwick was fascinated by the process. He would ‘dumpster dive’ behind cabinet shops to glean small pieces of discarded veneer.

He studied and learned and began making his own
patterns.

The focus on marquetry would go into hiatus for the next few years as Sedgwick, at the age of 18, went into the British Army and served for two years before emigrating to Canada.

He married his wife Maria and together they raised a family while Sedgwick worked on building his own manufacturing company designing automated equipment.

Eventually he found a few extra hours and returning to the fine art in 1982 he turned his focus to finding others who shared his passion. “I thought there must be more people
doing this.”

There was a founding society in the UK and France and as it was the days before the internet, he wrote to England and asked if there were any members in Canada and the US.

He received the names of eight people attached to the British society.

They lived far and wide from Kingston and Niagara through to Detroit and the US. He wrote each one a letter.

Four were actively doing marquetry, two were older cabinet makers by then in their late 70s and two were hobbyists. They formed the Marquetry Society of Canada in 1983.

“I had never met anyone elsr and wanted to see what others were doing,” Sedgwick said.

He started going to wood shows and meeting people with the shared passion and found the woodworkers’ mecca at Lee Valley Tools where he regularly teaches seminars at locations across the Greater Toronto Area (GTA.)

Students spend a day creating their own projects and learning techniques, some of which come from practices used by the Egyptians more than 3,000 years ago.

Much of Sedgwick’s work has involved repairs of marquetry, including music boxes dating from the 1880s.

Through the process and by necessity he has also honed skills in furniture making, furniture repair, wood carving and turning. And each time he moves on to a new project, of course, he needs more tools – a need to which every woodworker will attest.

His work has earned best of show and best of class awards at juried competitions in Canada, the United States and the U.K.

He has contributed to two books and written many articles. His work has graced the covers of two Lee Valley cataloguemagazines and a catalogue.  But always, Sedgwick says modestly, just when you think you’re great, you’re only good.

He finds others, highly skilled, who share his passion and he continues to learn.

Closer to home, Sedgwick was invited last month to exhibit a collection of his work at the Christmas meeting of the Grimsby Probus Club, a sagacious social group by definition, that meets strictly to enjoy the camaraderie of networking with old friends who share decades of professional and life experiences.

For more information about marquetry and photos of Sedgwick’s work visit:

http://www.marquetry-inlayrestorations.com/