The Wine Room by David Nash: A Hidden Gem, a Last-Minute Yes
VIP guests from Tonga, a change of plans, and an afternoon I’ll never forget.
Mālō e lelei and bonjour, fellow wine explorers. This week’s Premier Pour is a little different. It’s a thank you.
Last week I hosted distinguished guests from the Kingdom of Tonga for a private wine tasting, and the purpose was simple: to discover Aotearoa wines in the glass. Every pour was made here in New Zealand. We tasted our premium wines from some of our best regions and makers, followed by New Zealand whisky and New Zealand gin. No imports, no shortcuts, just the story of New Zealand beverage production, told one glass at a time.
Everything was planned. The venue was booked and the wines were chosen. Then the timing changed. That’s the world of premium hospitality. Your guests’ schedule moves, and you move with it. No drama, no excuses. You find a way. A new venue had to cater for the change of time from the VIP guests.
So, I picked up the phone and called David Nash. One quick call, a few details, and then David said it: “It’s all go. Let’s do it.” Just like that.
And I wasn’t alone. My son Hosea came with me. He helped carry and set up, a quiet helper in the background. He didn’t know yet that the afternoon had a seat waiting for him.
A secret gem in Auckland
The Wine Room sits on College Hill in Freemans Bay, soaking up the afternoon sun. Walk past too fast and you might miss it.
Don’t.
Inside, it’s a collection of spaces above and below the ground. A wine bar. A private dining room. A cigar deck. A shop. And downstairs, a cellar I’ll come back to.
The bar won Auckland’s Best Wine List at the Metro Restaurant Awards in 2025. And you can feel why. Benchmark wines from all over the world are poured by the glass.
Think about that for a second.
Champagne. Burgundy. Central Otago. Wines most of us would never risk a whole bottle on. Here, you can try one glass.
Taste. Compare. Learn.
That’s wine education the easy way. And I love that.
The private Tasting room
For our tasting, we were in the private dining room. Calm. Warm. Discreet. Exactly what a VIP guest needs.
The room seats from 2 to 15. It felt intimate, but never small. The kitchen, Kirsten, Jo, and Victor, cooks European flavours with the best of New Zealand produce. Every plate gave the wine something to talk to.
And the service? Quiet, confident, always one step ahead.
And then there was Lea. While I talked about the wines to our VIP guests, Lea poured, quietly and gracefully, always at the right moment. She is French, and having her serve us brought a little piece of France to the table. Between pours we slipped into French, un petit moment de France in the middle of Auckland, and Hosea even got the chance to test his French. I couldn’t have asked for anything more. Merci beaucoup, Lea.
Premium service isn’t about plans never changing. It’s about having people who say yes when they do.
A seat at the table
Now, the moment I didn’t see coming. When the tasting began, my son sat outside the table, watching, listening and ready to help. Then one of our guests stopped and invited him in: “Come. Sit with us.”
So, he did. He swirled, he smelled, and he heard the stories behind each glass. And he watched his father work. I’ll be honest, that one hit me.
In our Tongan way, you learn by being in the room. You watch your elders. You serve first. Then, one day, someone makes space for you at the table. That’s how I learned, in Ha’apai, in Glen Innes and in the cellars of Burgundy. And that afternoon, I watched it happen for my boy.
Same table. Different generation. Same respect.
Downstairs: the cellar
AL from Brazil took me to the cellar, malo ‘aupito AL!
Below the room sit more than 400+ individual cellars. Cool. Dark. Still. Kept at 12–14°C, with humidity at 65–75%. Low light. Minimal vibration. Members can reach their wine 24 hours a day.
It took me straight back to Burgundy.
As a student at the Burgundy School of Business, I spent time in cellars dug deep under Dijon and the villages along the Côte. Same cool air. Same silence. Same feeling that time slows down for the wine.
Their new membership is called The Reserve. Their own words sum it up: access, not storage. Members can have a bottle brought up from their cellar and decanted at the table that same evening, with no corkage, because the wine is already theirs.
Membership is by application, check it out their website – The Reserve
Wine Chief takeaway
Three ways to enjoy The Wine Room:
- Visit the bar. Pick a classic region you’ve always wondered about. Order one glass. Ask the team what makes it special.
- Book the private room for a moment that matters. A birthday, a family dinner, a guest from overseas. Two to twenty people.
- Look after your special bottles. At home, keep them cool, dark, still and lying down. Never on the kitchen bench, never on top of the fridge. If your collection is growing, ask about The Reserve.
Final Pour
Great wine is wonderful. Great people make it unforgettable.
To David Nash and the whole team at The Wine Room: thank you for saying yes, for looking after our guests so beautifully, and for making a Tongan wine man very proud.
And to my son: thank you for showing up, setting up, and sitting up straight at that table. I’m proud of you.
If you’re in Auckland, go and find this place. Take someone you love. Try something new.
Choose well, drink with joy, and keep it simple.
Mālō ‘aupito,
Semisi Telefoni — The Wine Chief