Lucky duck

Cloudy Bay Pinot & Duck Trail is a colab where you enjoy a signature dish using duck matched with wine, throughout July. Thread was lucky enough to sample the duck and pinot at The Foodstore and Botswana Butchery…

It’s duck season!

Cloudy Bay Pinot & Duck Trail is a colab between Cloudy Bay Vineyards and eleven top restaurants nationwide, where you can book to try a signature dish using duck matched with wine at each. Prices for each dish with a glass of Pinot vary between $32 and $62 around the restaurants.

The restaurants involved are The Foodstore, Botswana Butchery, SPQR, Clooney, and O’Connell St Bistro all in Auckland; Foxglove in Wellington, The Monday Room and JDV in Christchurch, Botswana Butchery and Pier 19 in Queenstown, and Bacchus Wine Bar & Restaurant in Dunedin.

The trail begins on 1st July until 31st July and you need to book directly with each restaurant.

Thread.co.nz was lucky enough to be able to sample duck and pinot at two of the restaurants involved – The Foodstore in Auckland Viaduct, and Botswana Butchery in the Auckland Ferry Building.

Below: The Foodstore.

Mark, the chef, explained the meal and how the duck and Pinot are so perfectly matched. After trying it, we couldn’t agree more.

Megan, chef Mark, and Rebecca.

Amber Peebles

Below: At Botswana Butchery.

Chef explaining the meal.

Cloudy Bay Pinot Noir – which has layers of ‘berries and cherries’ balanced with notes of mushroom and savoury spice – makes it a perfect accompaniment for duck.

Below: Sarah Burton, Cloudy Bay Winemaker, tells us about the wine and its vintage year of 2010 – which she personally loves as that’s when she joined the company – and how the pinot has three flavours of spicy, fruity and savoury, and they aim for a ‘funky’ taste, with plenty of tannin.