Kiwis have their day in the city(2)

Getting a bigger taste

One of the New Zealand products that has won acclaim around the world is its wine. In Shanghai if you want to learn more about New Zealand wine and styles, Yangjiu.com, one of China's leading online wine and gourmet food shops, is now offering a wine class to explore New Zealand's fine wines.

"We will discover how the All Blacks (the world-famous national rugby team of New Zealand and Rugby World Cup holders) actually manage to make some of the best whites in the world, and I will tell you how lucky you are to actually get to try wines from a country that produces only as much wine as Cyprus," said wine expert Matthieu Liard.

For Liard New Zealand is special. Though it produces less wine in volume than many other countries, it is remarkable for the quality of its wine and the varieties.

"New Zealand has a wide variety of climates that allow it to grow all kinds of grapes, from Syrah, a rather warm climate variety, in Hawke's Bay in the North Island to Pinot Noir or Riesling in the cooler climates of Central Otago in the South Island," said Liard.

"But the most iconic wine from New Zealand is certainly the Sauvignon Blanc from Marlborough (Sauvignon Blanc accounts for roughly 75 percent of New Zealand's wine exports). Thanks to a very specific climate the Sauvignon Blancs from Marlborough are wines with a special intensity. Marlborough Sauvignon Blancs, more than any other wine, have contributed a great deal to establish the world-class reputation that New Zealand wines have today."

Liard's wine appreciation class will include tasting and discussing wines including Station Road, Cloudy Bay and Kim Crawford Sauvignon Blancs.

Small but successful

For a small country New Zealand often punches above its weight. The home of some of the world's most spectacular scenery, it is also the home to a unique birdlife (the only native mammals in New Zealand are small bats). The national symbol the kiwi is recognized throughout the world. It was one of many flightless birds that enjoyed a lush paradise before humans arrived and introduced animal life that killed many species like the 3.7-meter tall giant moa which roamed the forests of New Zealand until the 18th century. 

Politically it has also been slightly different. In 1893 New Zealand became the first country to give women the right to vote. 

Chinese prospectors from Guangdong Province arrived in New Zealand in 1866 joining the gold rushes in the South Island. Hundreds eventually came to work in the gold fields, most returning to China although a few stayed and took up farming.

The country has produced the film stars Russell Crowe, Anna Paquin and Sam Neil as well as the film directors Sir Peter Jackson and Jane Campion. The singer Courtney Love spent her childhood and was educated in New Zealand. Other musical Kiwis are the international opera stars Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, Dame Malvina Major and Inia Te Wiata along with country singer and husband of Nicole Kidman, Keith Urban.

The writer Rewi Alley who lived most of his life in Beijing was a Kiwi as was the writer Katherine Mansfield. 

Kiwis in the field of science include Ernest Rutherford, the father of nuclear physics, William Hayward Pickering who was one of NASA's space exploration pioneers, the pioneering plastic surgeon Sir Archie McIndoe and the Nobel Prize winning physicist Maurice Wilkins.   

Also making their mark on the world have been Sir Edmund Hillary, the man who conquered Mount Everest (also called Qomolangma), Jean Batten, the adventuring aviatrix who was the first to fly solo from New Zealand to England in 1936, A.J. Hackett, who invented bungy jumping, the six-time motorcycle speedway world champion Ivan Mauger and champion golfer Sir Bob Charles.