In the heart of the Waitaki sits the Valli Test Kitchen. A group of dedicated individuals designing dishes to converse with the range of Valli wines and sit down seriously to taste them together. And also not so seriously.

When our valley starts greening up, inspiration is not far behind. Fresh spring greens, ingredients to forage for, festivities, gatherings, pot lucks, it is time to put the apron on. Our first VALLI Taste Kitchen was led by the framework of seasonal food sourced locally. With ingredients that we found, a menu was nailed down and all the while we dreamed what VALLI Wine we could pair with it. We are putting our wines up to the test: Can we create beautiful seasonal dishes and find a VALLI wine to match? I think we can!

In this feature Franca and I have been foraging in the Waitaki and designed a meal to accompany our local finds. We have come up with elderflowers, fennel & salmon. I didn’t give Franca enough time to catch the salmon so she popped down to the Twizel and visited High Country Salmon. Both fennel and elderflower are abundant in the valley along paddock edges in November through early December, so we took full advantage of the seasonality to harvest these beautiful aromatic ingredients.

Enjoy these late Spring dishes paired with current vintages while driving the BBQ at your next get together.