Sarah Shand's husband John died before the couple released the first vintage. Photo / Hawke's Bay Today
Sarah and John Shand planted the cuttings for their Hawkes Bay vineyard, Corozo Estate, in the vege garden, nursing the vines until they were strong enough to be transplanted.
That was seven years ago. Eighteen months ago John died after a battle with an aggressive brain tumour.
It's
a difficult time of year for Sarah Shand. The vines on their Matapiro property are picked clean of grapes and the leaves are turning from yellow to orange to brown.
She is seeing nine years of hard work - hers, John's and their two boys' - come to fruition without him. For the first time, Corozo Estate is releasing a vintage.
"He [John] would be so proud," Sarah says. "He wanted to succeed with this. He would say, 'Look, we can do this'. He wanted that dream for the kids."
One day two years ago, she found her husband collapsed on the driveway and gripped by seizures. The outdoors man who loved working with his hands hadn't picked up his boys from school as he usually did.
He had two operations, a month apart, and the family set about making memories, including a family portrait session.
Together the Shands visited Cranford Hospice in Hastings, preparing for the day when John would need its care. "We wanted them to see John how he was, so they knew how he was before he got too sick," she says.
John spent his last days at the hospice. Sarah would rub pinot noir from their vineyard across his lips so he could taste the wine they had made.
Now Corozo Estate is giving back. Sarah has donated a barrique of the 2007 vintage pinot noir for this weekend's Midlands Charity Wine Auction at the Hawkes Bay Opera House, a fundraising event for the hospice.
Matapiro is a great area for pinot, Sarah says, because of the colder climate and metal in the soil.
She and John chose it because of its likeness to Canterbury's Rakaia Gorge, where John grew up. "John had to see the snow."
* Tickets for the Midlands Charity Wine Auction and pre-auction tasting evening are available from 0800 442-9463, or email info@hawkesbaywineauction.co.nz.
