Wine launch at 17,000ft breaks record

A New Zealand winery has broken a world record by staging a wine launch at 17,000 feet in the shadow of Mount Everest.

John Matheson, of Drumsara Wines, sets a world record for the world’s highest-altitude wine launch in front of Mount Everest.

Central Otago winemakers Drumsara Wines officially launched its vintage 2012 Ventifacts Block Pinot Noir with the help of high altitude rescue pilot Jason Laing.

The team captured the wine’s launch at the Kala Patthar landing in the Mahalangur Himalaya mountain range at 17,323ft, smashing the previous world’s highest altitude wine launch on Mt Ararat, Turkey by 470ft.

Kala Patthar, which means ‘black rock’ in Nepali, is the best vantage point from which to see Mt Everest from base camp to peak, but a wine launch is a first for the landing.

New Zealand helicopter pilot Laing, one of the few high altitude rescue pilots in the world, spends up to three months each year working in the region conducting low altitude recoveries – retrieving climbers hit by altitude sickness from Mt Everest’s base camp – as well as more difficult high altitude long-line rescues.

He said: “This was an unusual challenge, this one, launching the wine is definitely one of the strangest things I’ve been asked to do. It’s another New Zealand first for the region and quite fitting for a high-end wine to have a high-altitude launch.”

Drumsara Wines, owned by former director of the New Zealand Wool Board John Matheson, is set on an eight-hectare site high on the glacial outwash gravel plateau which overlooks the Central Otago towns of Clyde and Alexandra.

The vineyards first hectare was planted in 2000 by Matheson – a third generation wool scourer. He began the vineyard as a hobby and now runs it as a boutique vineyard.