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Treading lightly with wine

If global wine consumption statistics are anything to go by, wine drinkers are taking a lighter approach than they did oh, say, 15 or 20 years ago. Robust international wine research, including from the IWSR shows a significant and steady decline in the amount of wine consumed globally but not only that, lower alcohol wines are also more popular with wine drinkers and producers alike. It's not all doom and gloom, in this writer's view, because a diversity of wine has always been a good thin...

Blue Earth releases five year old Pinot Noir

Blue Earth Estate has forged a reputation for releasing wines when they have age and the  savoury Pinot Noir reviewed in this column is a good example; it comes from the superb 2020 vintage. That was the year of covid lockdowns, which made harvest tricky in many parts of thew world, including at the relatively small Blue Earth Estate in Te Muna Valley, Martinborough, New Zealand. Despite the challenges of social distancing while picking grapes, the 2020 vintage was excellent across New Zeal...

French Film Festival launches in Wellington

The French Film Festival Aotearoa launches this week in Wellington, the capital city of Aotearoa New Zealand, for those reading from afar. What has this to do with wine, you might ask, aside from the glass or two that will be served at the launch of the 2025 programme?The screening this week is of one of the highlights of the 2025 programme, The French Job, which outlines in comic details of art theft, based on a real story.Th...

Vintage 2025 in New Zealand's epicentre of Pinot Noir

Vintage is in full swing when the plane lands in the midst of majestic mountains encircling Queenstown. I'm here to host The Many Faces of Pinot Noir tasting for 100 people who have come to enjoy Pinot Noir, lunch and a chance to learn about the region and its wines at Mora Wines' Annual Harvest Celebration. The visit is also an opportunity to pick grapes at Felton Road, visit Carrick Winery's new cellar door, stop into Dicey's winery (a first time visit), taste ferments at Quartz Reef with wine...

April's wine woman of the month Anna Campbell

Anna Campbell is the co-founder of The Uncommon wines, one of the newest canned wine brands in Aotearoa New Zealand, who shares her first wine experience and how that led her into a career in making it. When were you first bitten by the wine bug?Wine was always part of my life, growing up because my extended family had vineyards in Christchurch. I never imagined I’d one day be in the business of wine but when the opportunity to bring The Uncommon to life in New Zealand presented...

Let's hear for... the white wine spritzer

It's Sauvignon but not as we usually know it. LYLO is the newest wine brand to hit the wine shelves in Aotearoa New Zealand - with a twist. That twist is the suggestion to use this wine as a base for a fresh vibrant cocktail and a lower alcohol one at that. The letters LYLO stand for Live Your Life Out Loud, which may sound more like a chilled out day floating around a swimming pool with a shaken not stirred rendition of a favourite cocktail but in this case, the idea is to make s...

What do new tariffs mean for NZ wine exporters to USA?

New Zealand Winegrowers Chief Executive Officer Philip Gregan announced today that New Zealand wine exported to the United States of America (USA) will now pay a tariff of 10% (calculated based on the FOB value of the product) in addition to the existing tariff.This will come into force on Saturday 5 April."This 10% addition is the baseline tariff increase for all imports into the USA. This is a significant increase on the current tariffs, which currently range between US 5 and 14 cents per...

Wine of the week - A surprise style

Aria is one of the great whites made in New Zealand at Pegasus Bay winery in North Canterbury. This wine of the week is a sneak preview of the new 2024 Aria, which will have its official release in late April/ early May this year. It is a stellar wine from a vintage that was slightly short on botrytis in a region renowned for it - from selected vineyard sites. This wine strikes a sublime balance of climate, botrytis influence and piercing zesty acidity which brings freshness to every s...

Top drops likely from 2025 vintage in North Island

Early vintage declarations holding high hopesWinemakers are experiencing pristine quality grapes on the east coast of Aotearoa New Zealand's North Island right now, which is vintage time in both Hawke's Bay and the Wairarapa.It's early days but fruit (grape) quality is extremely high with a wide range of wineries picking excellent quality grapes that are ripening uniformly in relatively small bunches of high quality, according to early reports in Martinborough in the heart of the Wairarapa. ...

Bubble bubble Méthode Marlborough Day

Wine of the week:  Hunter's MiruMiru Vintage 2020 RRP $43.99WIth Méthode Marlborough Day held this week, it seems timely to make it a sparkling wine of the week and what better than the toasty richness of this dry, long aged Pinot Noir-led bubbly from Hunter's Wines. It's a rhetorical question and a great wine. This is 77% Pinot Noir and 23% Chardonnay, which adds the crispness and freshness to the great depths of Pinot's body, mouthfilling broadness and layers of savoury deliciousness.&nb...

Do good things come in twos? Top 12 from 2022 - Gimblett Gravels reds

There’s an old Chinese proverb about balance and harmony, which translates to something along the lines of “good things come in pairs”, which paints an accurate picture of vintages in Hawke’s Bay over the past decade. The very good to outstanding years of 2013 and 2014 were an excellent pair of vintages. As were 2020 and 2021. And then, as if to flip things on their head entirely, there was 2022 and 2023. These years were a touch more challenging, not to put too fine a point on...

New era from an old vineyard in Martinborough

International Riesling Day this month marked the end of a long important winemaking era and the beginning of an exciting innovative new one at Nga Waka wines in Martinborough. It was an auspicious moment for Riesling and pizza lovers too.The launch of a trio of new 2024 wines included an invitation to taste one of them, the 2024 Nga Waka Riesling to be served with a Riesling pizza. How could I say no? This was a first in more ways than one. It's the first Riesling made in volume from an old...

Tony Bish releases first Two Terraces Chardonnay

Tony Bish first released a small amount of his new 2023 Two Terraces Chardonnay for the 2024 Hawke’s Bay Charity Wine Auction in September last year, which contributed towards the total of $335,697 raised for the Cranford Hospice. The wine tasted excellent at the auction where it had its first public outing. This is now the official new release of 2023 Two Terraces Chardonnay and it's even better, having evolved favourably over the past six months, revealing more weight and layers of...

Aged Release wines bring greatness to a wide audience

So much that happens in the world of wine is a preview and the following top drops are no exception, even if they are labelled Aged Release. These wines will officially be available to purchase in May this year and they have been ageing in a controlled environment at the winery for the past decade, which brings new meaning to the old adage that good things take time. Welcome to the Pegasus Bay Aged Release range. The winery's founders, the Donaldson family, first started its Aged Release ra...

No mud, no lotus - celebrating International Women's Day with Rachael Carter of Soho

Rachael Carter is one of the many women in wine who I admire in Aotearoa New Zealand. She founded Soho Wine Co and has built a strong wine brand by employing outstanding winemakers, sourcing grapes from regions that span the country from Waiheke Island in the sunny north to Central Otago in the majestic deep south. Her wines are named after the people and pets she loves. These include Stella McCartney and Alexander McQueen, among many others. She walks the talk of selling wine in a market that i...

Happy 25th Jules Taylor

Jules Taylor is celebrating something many of us would like to do all over again; turn 25, only this time round it's the birthday of her wine brand. The first vintage of Jules Taylor Wines was in 2001 with a block of hand picked Pinot Gris that was pressed directly to barrel and fermented with wild yeasts.“I had already worked many vintages for other wineries and at that point I was working for Marlborough Valley Cellars, a contract facility producing Kim Crawford Wines, Saint Clair and C...

Air New Zealand raises glass to new wine label

If you had to celebrate a 1345 mile trip, which wines would you take with you? The answer was easy for New Zealand's national airline, which launched its first wine label, Thirteen Forty Five, this month with a Pinot Noir and a Sauvignon Blanc, both made from grapes grown in Marlborough and both produced at Indevin Winery. The name Thirteen Forty Five comes from the first trans Tasman trip that the airline made in 1940 from Auckland to Sydney, which covered 1345 miles. The flight was o...

Felton's highly anticipated releases

Felton Road wines... This winery's production represents the pinnacle of Pinot Noir in Aotearoa, New Zealand, along with a handful of other wineries, but there's more to Felton Road winery, which also makes Riesling and Chardonnay. All Felton Road wines are estate grown, which means that all grapes were grown on land owned by the winery. The attention to detail, long term devotion of both the viticultural team as well as the winemaking one and the unwavering focus on certified organics all ...

An ancient Greek inspired meal

Gina Salapata was born and bred in Greece, which led her to host a Greek banquet to mark the 50th anniversary of Classical Studies at Te Kunenga ki Pūrehuroa, Massey University. Gina is an Associate Professor of the Classical Studies Programme in the School of Humanities, Media and Creative Communication at Massey University. The ancient Greek banquet that she hosted was held at Wharerata restaurant at Massey University's Manawatū campus in late 2024. It was attended by over 70 diner...

Hawke's Bay announces 12 top Chardonnays

Hawke’s Bay Winegrowers has announced its new top 12 Chardonnays for the fifth year in a row of independently evaluated wines. The wines are selected in a blind tasting where the identity is concealed of a far larger range of wines. The analysis is done by wine consultant Cameron Douglas, who holds the Master Sommelier qualification. The top 12 Chardonnays represent the wine that flies the flag for Hawke's Bay as its flagship varietal. It also cements Hawke’s Bay reputation as one of the wor...

Central Otago blazes certified organic wine trail

Central Otago Winegrowers Association reached a new milestone this week of 30% organic certification for its vineyard area, which is the highest proportion in Aotearoa New Zealand. "We would like to reshape how people value the connection between the wine they drink and the land it comes from," says Carolyn Murray, General Manager of Central Otago Winegrowers Association (COWA). “This achievement stems from over a decade of dedication and collaboration, beginning with COWA’s 2009 g...

Top 2023 Pinot Noirs from Felton Road

One of Aotearoa New Zealand's most significant wine events of the past five years kicks off this week on Tuesday 11 February for three precious Pinot Noir devoted days. The event is Pinot Noir NZ 2025 and it is to be held in Ōtautahi, Christchurch. It makes sense to dedicate an entire event to Pinot Noir, which is the most planted red grape in New Zealand (5,613 hectares nationwide, second only to the vast plantings of Sauvignon Blanc) and this attracts vast international attention due to ...

Rosé Day in Aotearoa New Zealand

Today is New Zealand Rosé Day, which just goes to show that this is not only the first country in the world to see the sun (the Chatham Islands excepted) but also the first to promote its soaring production of pink wine each year.Rosé is on a roll and wine lovers are putting their money where their mouths are to buy it, even in these rather tough financial times. Wine retail sales reveal a continuous rise in rosé sales globally, including in New Zealand where production has risen alongside th...

Slow but steady wins... Albarino in Aotearoa

Albarino grew from 64 to 75 hectares across Aotearoa New Zealand between 2023 and 2024. This is impressive in percentage terms but is absolutely dwarfed by the country's leading aromatic white wine grape, Sauvignon Blanc's 28,753 hectares. So, is Albarino worth watching for future success?It's relatively early days with Albarino,, which came into New Zealand due to young winemakers, such as Beth Forrest of Forrest Estate in Nelson. She worked vintage in Rias Biaxas in Spain, falling for the arom...

On the rock... Pinot Noir from the edge 2022 Grasshopper Rock

When an owner of one of the world's southernmost vineyards camped out in the centre of one of the world's northernmost wine regions, he saw differences as well as similarities. Those vineyards are, respectively, in Alexandra in Central Otago and along vineyards on the hill from Aloxe-Corton in the Côte de Beaune north to Gevrey-Chambertin in Burgundy. The regions of Central Otago and Burgundy are best known for their Pinot Noir and, in Burgundy also for Chardonnay. So it makes sense that there ...