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Flintshire couple to carry out wine tasting at Hawarden Estate Farm Shop

Oct 20 2011 by Lois York, Flintshire Chronicle

FINE wine needs a good nose, and there’s none finer than the long, black, wet one of rescue dog Amber.

But, with Amber’s tastebuds more attuned to pork than pinot, she’s happy to lend her profile to the new Black Dog Wine Agency and leave the wine selection to her owners Dave and Katie Paddle.

Black Dog was set up to import quality wines exclusively from small New Zealand wineries.

Dave and Katie’s love affair with New Zealand developed over years travelling to see family and they cemented the Kiwi connection in 2008 when they married – in a vineyard of course – on Waiheke Island, just off Auckland.

Both Katie, who comes from Penyffordd near Mold, and Dave, from Cheshire, have been invited this Saturday (Oct 22) to carry out a tasting session of their wines at the award-winning Hawarden Estate Farm Shop in Chester Road, Hawarden.

The two university graduates have specialist wine qualifications from the world-recognised Wine and Spirit Education Trust. Katie said: “We’ve travelled extensively in New Zealand and felt we had knowledge of the country, its people and the wines, which we could put to good use.”

Now based in Wash Lane, Allostock, Cheshire, the couple will be off to New Zealand again in January for the wedding of Katie’s sister, Rachel Butler.

Rachel, a former naval officer, worked as an intelligence analyst with NZ Customs and is currently on permanent secondment as a teaching fellow at Massey University’s centre for defence and security studies, and will be getting married in a vineyard, on January 27.

“We’ll also be using our time in New Zealand to visit some of the producers whose wines we import,” said Dave, a graduate of Bangor University.

Both Katie and Dave have worked for wine traders in Wirral, Chester and Cheshire and Katie is about to take up a post in the wine department of a top store in Manchester.

Katie said: “When we set up the business we knew Amber would have to be a part of it. She may have questionable pedigree but she’s certainly got a nose for the finer things in life.”

For details of the wines, visit www.blackdogwineagency.co.uk, email blackdogwineagency@hotmail.co.uk or call 01565 723154.

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