Liquorland said stores around the country had also been inundated with customers wanting to honour the Jurassic Park star through his acclaimed winery.<\/p>\n
Two Paddocks general manager Jacqui Murphy said said sharing wine had always been central to Sir Sam Neill’s philosophy. Photo \/ George Heard<\/p>\n
At Liquorland Waiuku, one woman waited outside 10 minutes before opening to ensure she didn\u2019t miss out on a bottle she planned to share with her best friend.<\/p>\n
The pair had \u201cmany memories of sharing bottles of Two Paddocks\u201d, one of their favourite Central Otago wines.<\/p>\n
At Liquorland Albert St in Auckland, another customer asked staff about the winery and its different varieties before settling on the estate pinot noir.<\/p>\n
She returned less than 10 minutes later to buy a second bottle as a gift, after saying she had only discovered the brand following Neill\u2019s death.<\/p>\n
Data provided to the Herald by wine marketplace Wine-Searcher showed global searches for Two Paddocks, which had typically sat between 700 and 1300 a month over the past year, climbed to almost 7000 in July.<\/p>\n
Sir Sam Neill’s winery, Two Paddocks, is based in Central Otago, with its home vineyard and winery at Earnscleugh, just outside Alexandra. Photo \/ Ross Coffey<\/p>\n
Daily searches jumped from around 10 to 35 a day before July 13 to 1864 on the day Neill\u2019s death was announced \u2013 a roughly 70-fold increase.<\/p>\n
At the same time, the number of bottles of Two Paddocks available for sale through New Zealand retailers fell by about 31% in the week after Neill\u2019s death, suggesting stock was quickly snapped up before retailers began restocking.<\/p>\n
Globally, the number of bottles available fell about 16%.<\/p>\n
Murphy said Neill would have been touched by the outpouring.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe would be really delighted to have seen this,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Sir Sam Neill’s passion for winemaking lives on, with fans raising a glass to the beloved actor. Photo \/ George Heard<\/p>\n
\u201cAt Two Paddocks, we want to thank everybody for the show of support. We understand and empathise with how many people have been affected by Sam\u2019s death.\u201d<\/p>\n
Many of the messages had come from visitors who had toured the vineyard over the years.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of messages [are] from people that have visited the farm and know the place and understand what Sam was trying to achieve with his Two Paddocks vineyards and winery,\u201d Murphy said.<\/p>\n
Murphy said sharing wine had always been central to Neill\u2019s philosophy.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was a great advocate for people sharing a great bottle of wine around the table, always with food, always with friends and family,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe thought we could drink less, but drink better, and Two Paddocks really fits along that model.\u201d<\/p>\n
She said the winery had been able to meet the sudden increase in demand because of its long-standing distribution network.<\/p>\n
Sir Sam Neill founded Two Paddocks in Central Otago in 1993, building the winery into one of New Zealand’s most acclaimed pinot noir producers. Photo \/ George Heard<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s difficult to fulfil sudden and significant sales spikes unless you have extremely good distribution of the wines throughout the country,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThankfully, Two Paddocks has great distribution.\u201d<\/p>\n
Negociants New Zealand, which has distributed Two Paddocks domestically for more than 16 years, also reported an increase in orders from retailers.<\/p>\n
General manager Dean McHenry confirmed there had been \u201ca slight upswing in demand\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have placed slightly more orders than we would have traditionally at the same time, just due to the orders that we\u2019re receiving from our own customers,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
McHenry said Neill\u2019s connection to the winery was genuine and long-standing.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not like some celebrities just got a bit of money and decided to build a winery. It\u2019s something that\u2019s in his DNA,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe loves pinot noir and he loves riesling … the wines are very authentic.\u201d<\/p>\n
McHenry said he was not surprised by the public response.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe public wants to celebrate his life, and they know that his wine is available to do that with.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Winery New Zealand Ltd founder and owner Rick Nelson said both his company\u2019s domestic and international websites had seen a very steady stream of orders, and it sold out of several Two Paddocks ranges last week.<\/p>\n
Nelson said orders had predominantly been shipping to the USA, Australia and the UK.<\/p>\n
\u201cSpeaking with a couple of customers the other day, they had selected Two Paddocks off the wine list at a restaurant the night before, and came into our Arrowtown store to purchase and send back to Australia … People are certainly seeing it as a way to connect.\u201d<\/p>\n
Independent retailer Glengarry Wines said it had also experienced increased demand.<\/p>\n
Family business manager Aroha Jakicevich said the response had been heartfelt rather than frantic.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have seen a moderate increase in demand following the news, with a noticeable lift in both sales and customer enquiries,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt has not felt like a sudden rush or panic buying.<\/p>\n
\u201cRather, long-time customers have been returning to the wines, while others are choosing a bottle as a way of acknowledging Sir Sam and his contribution to New Zealand wine.\u201d<\/p>\n
Neill\u2019s death has also prompted an outpouring of support for causes he championed during his lifetime. Sustainable Tarras, the group opposing a proposed open-cast gold mine near the actor\u2019s Central Otago home, has received a surge in donations and new supporters since his death.<\/p>\n
Sustainable Tarras said the organisation had been \u201cheartened, but not at all surprised, by the outpouring of affection for Sam\u201d, with many people signing up and donating in his honour.<\/p>\n
Ben Tomsett is a multimedia journalist based in Dunedin. He joined the Herald in 2023.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Liquorland said stores around the country had also been inundated with customers wanting to honour the Jurassic Park…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":538223,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[94516,264938,2840,3376,6946,806,14645,634,156,9517,75102,9637,305,424,661,259980,111,139,69,57913,2515,697,659,667,18460,100,8485,26213,2737,1515,157571,1237,6277,1754,29157,102,80],"class_list":["post-538222","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-94516","tag-264938","tag-across","tag-actor","tag-actors","tag-as","tag-beloved","tag-death","tag-entertainment","tag-fans","tag-flown","tag-glass","tag-have","tag-life","tag-major","tag-neills","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-paddocks","tag-raise","tag-recording","tag-retailer","tag-sales","tag-sam","tag-shelves","tag-sir","tag-soar","tag-star","tag-surge","tag-toast","tag-two","tag-wake","tag-wine","tag-wines","tag-with","tag-zealand"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/538222","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=538222"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/538222\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/538223"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=538222"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=538222"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=538222"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}