Donna Wells last appeard in Seafood New Zealand in March 2007. She is best-known as the managing director for seafood exporter Finestkind,in Nelson, acting as a go-between for local independent fishers and markets overseas. She is also a quota broker, and is director-at-iarge of the Australian based Women Industry Network Seafood Community.
As an advocate for New Zealand seafood Donna is involved with food festivals, promoting seafood to the general public. To this end, she teamed up with Marlborough's Saint Clair Family Wines to enter the Supreme Wine & Food Match competition at the Marlborough Wine Festival last february this year. The combination won, and
we have the winning recipe for you to replicate home.
The Marlborough Wine Festival, the region's biggest and New Zealand's best-known annual festival, holds the Supreme Wine and Food Match where participants are required, in tandem with a winery, to concoct an original dish to accompany a particular wine from the Marlborough region.
This year saw 12 of the best restaurants from around the Marlborough region enter the competition and fight it out for the supreme honour Judged by world-renowned chef and food personality, Julie Le Clerc, along with Marlborough's Belinda Jackson, the high caliber of entrants gave diners an opportunity to experience some of the finest wine and food matches the region has to offer.
The offering from Finestkind and Saint Clair - scallops tossed in a chilli kelp sprinkle, seared on the barbeque in macadamia oil and served with lemon on a bed of mesclun, paired with Saint Clair Omaka Reserve Chardonnay 2007 - proved to be an unbeatable match. The spicy scallops were apparently perfectly paired with the
"deliciously full-bodied and rich Saint Clair chardonnay". Neal Ibbotson, Managing Director of Saint Clair Family Estate comments, "When our wines are entered into competitions they are tasted and judged on their own. But a wine really shows its full capacity when it is part of a winning food combination such as this.
We were honoured to work with Finestkind, and look forward to teaming up with them again in the future." Donna was also delighted with the result: "lt's a prestigious and highly coveted award, so it was an honour to win it." She notes that Finestkind and Saint Clair have "buddied up" in the food and wine match for four years in a row. "We had a close win two years ago with polrus oysters and sauvignon blanc."
Donna adds: "l entered the winning dish in the food and wine match after helping on the Oceanz Seafood stall at the Auckland Seafood Festival in January. lt was similar to what I had been producing but gave me a chance to try something new and educate the massesl I felt it was a winner. The judges' decision was the same
and their decision was unanimous. The match had all the elements the judges were looking for: presentation, taste, match and texture.
The recipe and products are from Cathedral Cove Macadamias, and the dish won the People's Award and the Food and Beverage Awards at the Whitianga Scallop Festival last year." Donna is really enthusiastic about these events - such as Seafext and the Bluff Oyster Festival: "l attend these events to promote seafood. lt's about realising the opportunity to give good seafood back to the public, We sell scallop pies and oyster pies, mussels, and smoked seafood platters. All product is sourced locally, whenever possible.