Peta Mathias is one of New Zealand’s most loved and respected food celebrities. She has been to visit us at the distillery several times over the years. One of her favourite products is our Prenzel Sauvignon Blanc and Cabernet Sauvignon Vinegars.

You may have read about this in her book “A Cook’s Tour of New Zealand”, published by Penguin New Zealand in July 2005.

Peta thinks so much of our vinegars that she has agreed to put her name to them. Here’s why, as described by Peta in A Cook’s Tour. We don’t think we could put it any better ourselves!

“Anyone can make vinegar and still more anyone can make flavoured vinegar, but only one outfit in New Zealand can make proper aged vinegar according to the ‘Orleans’ method.

Most modern vinegars are manufactured over a few days in stainless steel vessels. These have built-in oxygen delivery and temperature controlled systems. This is the fastest and cheapest way to make vinegar.

Prenzel, however, do things the slow way, producing an infinitely better product. They fill some oak barrels with Marlborough sauvignon blanc wine and some with cabernet sauvignon wine, then seed them with an Acetobacter or vinegar ‘mother’.

The barrels are put in an insulated shed – which contains up to five barrels kept at 30ºC.

The idea is to increase oxygen supply, so the barrels lie on their side and are only half full. A hole is left in the barrel so that the air can flow over the surface.

After three or four years all the alcohol has gone, then the liquid is diluted with water to bring the acetic level down from around seven percent to five percent.

The vinegar is then filtered to get rid of the mother, but not pasteurised as this would change the flavour.

This is the Orleans method. It is wasteful, as some of the wine is lost through evaporation – ‘the angels share’.

It is also expensive, as a considerable amount of storage and labour is involved. But the result is incomparable to the forcing tanks of industrial vinegars.

Prenzel vinegar tastes as it did to the medieval palate, with a wide range of layered flavours and subtleties. No attempt is made to sugar or otherwise soften the product – it is just pure vinegar with no chemical additives.”

Peta Mathias,
A Cook’s Tour of New Zealand, Penguin New Zealand 2005. Reprinted with the permission of the Penguin Group (NZ).

Peta has also kindly shared with us some recipes that showcase the vinegars. You will find these on the vinegar’s necktag.

We are very proud that our New Zealand Honey Liqueur, made from locally sourced Blue Borage honey and brandy, was awarded Best in Class at the International Wines and Spirits Competition, the premier competition of its kind in the world.

We also scooped other awards – Silver for Blenheim Bay Premium Gin, Silver for our Butterscotch Cream Liqueur and Bronze for our Citron Ice.

Prenzel was one of only three New Zealand companies to be honoured at the awards. We won the most awards of the three companies, and were the only New Zealand company to win awards over a variety of categories. We were also the highest scoring entry outside UK/Europe in each category.

This means in the last four months, we have won eight major international awards – pretty good for a little kiwi company! More information about these awards is available at http://www.iwsc.net/.

We reckon We’ve Got It Made because we are New Zealand Made. So much so that we have joined the government’s Buy New Zealand Made programme and their “We’ve Got It Made” advertising campaign because we want to tell the world just how proud we are to be kiwi.

Prenzel has for many years taken European distillation and liqueur-making techniques, then used New Zealand flavours, added a dash of innovation and created products that get noticed on the world stage.

Please join us in this celebration of New Zealand and get out and Buy New Zealand Made along with us!