IT has a delicious aroma of stonefruit, melon and toasty oak.

According to the label, its concentrated fruit flavours come from fermentation and ageing in French oak barrels. It's a delicious white wine from the Chardonnay grape. And it comes from Rossendale.

For those doubting connoisseurs of the cork, the proof is in the hands of Rossendale Mayor and Mayoress Peter and Lynne Heyworth.

But the 'Rossendale' of the wine label is in North Island, New Zealand, not East Lancs.

Rossendale Wines, a gold medal winning label 'down under', was brought thousands of miles to the place which gave it its name by Kiwi vintners Brent and Shirley Rawstron and daughter Kirsti, 10.

The family presented the Valley Mayor and Mayoress with a bottle of white Chardonnay and a bottle of red Pinot Noir from the Rossendale Wines vineyard in Christchurch.

And the family was delighted to take home with them a Rossendale coat of arms to hang on the wall of their restaurant. The link between old country and new goes back over 100 years when Brent's grandfather Albert Rawstron emigrated to New Zealand from Rawtenstall in the 1880s.

He established a meat producing company, named Rossendale Holdings after the Forest of Rossendale, and his son, Brent's father, introduced Scottish cattle and Leicester sheep to New Zealand.

"We looked for a complementary product to beef, and wine seemed the logical choice. We established a winery in 1992 and opened a restaurant in 1994.

"Now 75 per cent of all produce sold in the restaurant is from the estate," said Brent, a director of the New Zealand Meat Producers' Board.

The family visited the Mayor's parlour during a whistle-stop tour of Rossendale - their first trip to East Lancs.

Their verdict on the Valley? It's lovely - but the climate's not right for wine production!

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