Latest posts by Martin Moodie (see all)
- Encountering a great destination shopping offer and a fellow spring chicken at Aelia Duty Free in Auckland - March 31, 2025
- Giesen and Strange Nature reunions; Aotea & Fushtagrammable experiences in Christchurch - March 21, 2025
- Finding a very New Zealand fault on the wondrous West Coast - March 16, 2025
Meet Eriko and Aline, a delightul duo of store assistants at Aotea Gifts, New Zealand’s leading gifts and souvenir chain.
I am in Christchurch, my home town, for a few days before heading up to Auckland to watch my beloved Crusaders rugby team take on (and I hope trounce) last year’s champions, the Blues, on Saturday. Then it’s a return to Hong Kong onboard one of Cathay Pacific’s big steel birds and back into the full swing of things.
I met Eriko while shopping at Aotea Gifts’ Cashel Street store in central Christchurch. The shop has an outstanding destination merchandise offer and it was good to see plenty of Asian customers shopping. As indeed was I.
Eriko, originally from Osaka, Japan, was super helpful in helping me select the right size clothing for my three grandbairns in the UK. She is one of those customer service representatives who make shopping a delight rather than a chore.
Only after I had made my purchase did I mention what I do for a job, asking Eriko and Aline to pass on my regards to company Co-Owner Richard Hanson. Along with his brother Donald, Richard took over running the business from their father Peter, who passed away in 2019.
Peter ranks as one of the great, though largely unsung, pioneers of travel retail. He founded the company way back in 1979, originally as the Aotea Greenstone and Sheepskin Factory in Takanini near Auckland.
From a fledgling, five-employee store he and his wife Joan built a thriving multi-city business dedicated to providing travellers with tangible memories of their time in New Zealand. I knew Peter well and was deeply saddened by his passing.
The business is as resilient as it is innovative. Aotea’s three stores in the Christchurch CBD were all closed after the February 2011 earthquake. It would be eight years before the company could reopen in the city.
Christhchurch has changed so much since that tragic event. With many of its buildings and houses both inside and outside the inner city damaged beyond repair – there are still swathes of ‘red zone’ ex-residential areas deemed unfeasible to build on, after the Crown acquired and demolished over 8,000 properties – it’s easy for a long-time but pre-quake resident such as me to struggle with wayfinding.
But it’s worth the effort. The CBD is taking on a vibrant and very different life form, nowhere better epitomised than Riverside Market, a fantastically buzzy indoor marketplace linking into a boutique network of retail, restaurants, cooking schools, cafés and bars in the heart of Christchurch CBD.
Among its multitude of diverse food & beverage offers, Riverside Market houses Kaiser Brew Garden, an all-weather garden bar complete with its own micro-brewery.
It was there I caught up with Rhys Julian, General Manager and Co-Owner of Strange Nature, the quirky super-premium New Zealand gin from Marlborough, which has gained hugely impressive traction in travel retail since its launch in October 2021.
Travel retail represents an impressively high majority share of Strange Nature’s business. That is a clear reflection not only of its striking on-shelf appeal and unusual spirit base – alcohol extracted from Marlbrough Sauvignon Blanc – but also the company’s commitment to supporting retailers rather than simply being listed and hoping for sell-through.
The following evening I dined at the home of one of the men responsible for that Sauvignon Blanc, Theo Giesen. I have known Theo since the early 1980s when he and his two brothers Alex and Marcel established Giesen Wines in my home province, Canterbury.
The initial venture proved troublesome in terms of terroir, climate and choice of grape varietals but undeterred the trio headed north to Marlborough to plant Sauvignon Blanc, the regional wine that was taking the world by storm.
From at first contracting grapes to later becoming major landowners and growers in the region, Giesen has become synonymous with Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc. To that vinous armoury, the brothers have added acclaimed cool climate Marlborough Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, German-style Estate Riesling and others, notably a smash hit 0% alcohol range of varietals, including Sauvignon Blanc (still and sparkling, the latter a first in New Zealand), Chardonnay, Riesling, Pinot Gris, Rosé and Merlot.
These are not insipid imitators of the real thing but vibrant, tasty wines made by using innovative spinning cone technology to distil the original full-strength wine into three parts – aroma, alcohol and body. The alcohol is carefully removed though some of it finds its way, of course, into Strange Nature.
Wine runs like a bloodline through the Giesen family. The boys’ grandfather August (Aw-goost) was a sommelier (and great grandfather Leonard Kaiser a brewer), and in a classic case of like father, like son, Theo and Janet Giesen’s boy Isaac has just launched his first wine, Endurer, a Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc. A very good one too.
Isaac is now looking for distributors around the world and also hopes to take the wine into travel retail, even perhaps as an exclusive if he can find an interested retailer. The name is highly appropriate for Isaac has another claim to fame, having in December/January 2018/19 become the first Kiwi to row solo across the Atlantic.
Isaac, dubbed The Blue Rower, completed the Talisker Whisky Atlantic Challenge after 70 days 19 hours and 37 minutes, having started his journey in La Gomera, Canary Islands and finished it in Antigua.
And finished it for a cause.
Having lost an Aunty and two close friends to suicide, he dedicated his epic row to raising funds for three charities in New Zealand and Australia dedicated to combating depression – a major contributor to the high suicide rates in both countries.
The Moodie Davitt Report was proud to be his Gold Sponsor. As I wrote in an earlier Blog, our logo has been seen in many places before but never, I can assure you, in the middle of the Atlantic. Endurer. Remember the wine. And the person.
Here’s another name to remember. Fush, a great new eatery at Christchurch Airport, named affectionately for the way foreigners (especially Aussies) like to mimic the way we Kiwis pronounce the letter ‘I’ as a ‘U’.
Thus to the non-Kiwi ear (and, it now has to be said after 38 years living overseas, mine), ‘Fish and Chips’ sounds like ‘Fush and Chups’.
Airport incarnations of successful local concepts (I described the original Fush restaurant in a February 2023 Blog), are not always successful given the space and other constraints of the environment. But this version, opened in partnership with SSP as part of an impressively ranged food & beverage offer, seems to be off to a flying start.
The company, founded by brother and sister, Anton and Māia Matthews, and Anton’s wife, Jess, claims to make the best fish & chips in Ōtautahi (Christchurch). I put that assertion to an early morning test at the airport today before boarding my flight north to Auckland.
As I ordered, I chatted with Tom, the outlet’s manager, a great bloke whom I had met on my 2023 visit to the original outlet in the Christchuch suburb of Wigram.
He said the business was doing really well. It deserves to, not just for the quality of its offer – my fush & chups meal was every bit as good as it looks in the photo below – but for the company’s championing of te reo Māori (the language of the Māori people) across all aspects of its communication.
Before I ordered, Tom had spotted me taking photos of the outlet with him in shot. “Did you catch my good side?” he asked as I approached the counter.
Tom, mate, you only have a good side. ✈
