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Pretty in pink and polarising - new rosés

Is there anything more contentious for wine drinkers than dry versus sweet wine? I'm not talking here about the obvious debates around packaging - corks versus screw caps (which is so old as a debate now, as to render it completely bizarre that it still enters conversation), boxes filled with plastic bladders and low priced large volume vessels, such as magnums for sub $20 bottles of wine.I am talking about pink wine that's pale but not dry. There's a long line up on my tasting table right ...

New reviews - Takapoto Estate Pinot Noirs

Just how many Pinot Noirs are made in New Zealand today?If the ever expanding lineup crossing my tasting table is anything to go by, there appears to be no ceiling - either in style or sheer volume - on the number of Pinot Noirs being produced across Aotearoa New Zealand today.Among the latest to impress is a standout from Takapoto Estate, with the Gibbston Valley Pinot Noir leading the charge. Once considered a marginal (read: cold) corridor connecting Central Otago’s warmer Cromwel...

Boxing on Rosé - surprising new boxed rosé

Just when we (the royal 'we' - that's me, for one) thought wine in a box was a relic of bygone days, along comes a wine to prove otherwise. The new range highlights four varietals; Chardonnay, Dry Rosé, Cabernet Sauvignon and Shiraz; all made in collaboration with South Australian artist Claire Ishino, whose role was the artwork on each two litre box. The producer is Yalumba, whose mantra for this range is something along the lines of dress to impress while also walking the sustainability talk ...

Hunter's Wines adds an Australian connection

Hunter's Wines is paying homage to an Australian connection this month with the launch of Golconda Shiraz. The wine is made in homage to second generation family members, James and Edward Macdonald (nephews of Jane Hunter). Their great-great-grandfather’s paddle steamer, the Golconda, once plied the waters of the River Murray - and provided the inspiration behind this wine's name. 18/202022 Golconda Shiraz RRP $39.99The first swirl of the 2022 Golconda Shiraz tastes like wa...

Friendship and fine wine

Red Hut Wines is a tale of friendship, frustration and fine wine, only in this case it's also relatively affordable wine, which was launched this month by Mike Farrugia and Corey Ryan. The pair have collaborated on other winemaking enterprises so there is a high level of trust. And they both acknowledge that sometimes the best ideas are born out of frustration as well as out of friendship. For Corey Ryan, a winemaker with decades' of experience under his belt, and Mike Farrugia, a long...

A Pinot week

To say it's been a Pinot Noir week is an understatement. It has been a Pinot month as I have been immersed in thoughts, tastes and the incredibly diverse range of styles of Pinot Noir in New Zealand today, in preparation for the annual Drinksbiz Pinot Noir Report. The contents of which remain under wraps until the magazine is printed and in the hands of the wine, food and beverage industry in this country, within the next week or two. There have been far more Pinot Noirs to taste, rate, rev...

Courage and great gin - meet two newcomers

When is the best time to launch a new brand?When asked, most people suggest waiting until after an economic downturn but the founders of a new gin brand called Unlikely Companions, have decided to take the plunge now and are launching their gins across New Zealand this month."We soft launched Unlikely Companions at the end of last year with an initial batch of about 1,000 bottles and created pop-up cocktail bars at drinks festivals to test the market and get early feedback," says Simon Swa,...

International Pinot Noir Day - "The one red wine"

Today is International Pinot Noir Day and it brings to mind the words of Astrolabe winemaker and co-founder, Simon Waghorn; “If you only had one red wine to be able to make, Pinot Noir would be the one you’d normally choose as a winemaker." Waghorn is an aromatic wine devotee. He has carved his winemaking name by producing distinctive aromatic white wines but the Pinot Noirs now being produced at Astrolabe are showing the benefits of a similar focus, which is enhancing the style and str...

An ode to rosé

Why has pink wine soared in popularity over the past two decades? While we ponder the question, the popularity of rosés, rosados and pink wines keeps on growing, along with the variety of styles these wines are made in. While pale pink rosés appear to be all the rage, there is a lot more to the world of pink wine than these, with Spain's deep pink rosados (typically made from Garnacha and other, more deeply coloured red grapes) can also taste every bit as dry as their southern French counterpa...

If you can make it here, you'll make it anywhere

Aotearoa might be a long way from New York but the 2023 vintage has a lot in common with the most famous song about the Big Apple; If you can make it here, you'll make it anywhere, sang Frank Sinatra, and the sentiment applies to the 2023 vintage. Talk about a tough one.As if two cyclones weren't enough for winemakers to contend with, continuous rainfall made that most important winemaking decision a fraught one - when to pick the grapes. The same was true in Hawke's Bay and, for the first time ...

Gimblett Gravels winemakers' best foot forward with 2023 release

Sixteen years on and the Gimblett Gravels Wine Growing District's (GGWD) Annual Vintage Selection is stronger than ever, with the release of its 16th annual top wines officially announced today. The 16th vintage of the top wines includes six from the GGWD from the 2023 vintage, which Sydney based Master of Wine Andrew Caillard describes as being "Extremely moving to taste wines of this quality and impact.” Caillard selects the top wines every year from a larger group that are put for...

Queen of whites and pinnacle of aromatics - Pegasus Bay's new releases

North Canterbury is one of the greatest wine regions in Aotearoa New Zealand and it's with a sense of awe that I taste the wines from the typically small to medium sized wine producers in this interesting pocket of winemaking, 40 minutes ' north of Christchurch city. It might be a smidge on north of the city but North Canterbury really is a world away in terms of the style of wines made there. 18.5/202024 Pegasus Bay Bel Canto RRP $40Bel Canto is the evocative name of the pinnacle of Pegasu...

Vintage overview Central Otago 2025

Picture on this blog: Beau, a Bendigo wine dog, stands on a vineyard post with the Pisa Range behind her one morning during harvest at Quartz Reef.What makes a good harvest and how did Central Otago look in 2025?It's a tricky question when the sun is shining, the region in question is one of the most spectacularly, jaw droopingly beautiful in the world and its dramatic mountainous foothills are flanked by vineyards nearly entirely devoted to Pinot Noir. It can be a little difficult to stand...

New Golden Egg and Heartwood Chardonnays

Two new Chardonnays from Tony Bish Wines this month highlight the diversity of the world's most popular white grape variety. Chardonnay, and the Hawke's Bay wine region.Chardonnay is often pigeon holed as big, creamy and buttery or lean and crisp, if it's a modern style fashioned after traditional Chablis, but in winemaker Tony Bish's hands, Chardonnay appears in a wider range of styles. Bish has a refreshing winemaking style and philosophy, which highlights the fact that Chardonnay is not an ei...

Pour the Marlborough Chardonnay

If Marlborough Chardonnay needs any introduction (which it really does not, given the stellar reputation and taste of Chardonnays from Dog Point Vineyards, the historic beauties of both Fromm and Giesen's Clayvin Vineyard,, Greystone, Cloudy Bay and so many more), here's an outstanding new wine to try. That was a long preamble to this wine of the week. This is stellar - a great wine to drink for Matariki this Friday 20 June. Wine of the week19/202024 Bouldevines Vineyard Rapaura S...

First ever bubbly from Coney Wines

When Coney Wines launched its first ever bubbly last month, I was reminded of a conversation with friends at a South Island winery about how hugely under rated, and relatively unknown, high quality sparkling wines are in New Zealand today. Despite this, the best sparkling wines made in this country put a strong case forward for the great suitability of New Zealand for producing some of the best bubbles on Earth. “Sparkling has been on my mind for a long time,” says winemaker Lisa Coney,...

World Environment Day inspires cultural change

World Environment Day this month was an official call for the global reduction of plastic, which just so happened to inspire a pretty well known Argentinian winery to significantly reduce its use of another intensively used resource - glass.The winery in question is Bodega Catena Zapata in Mendoza, Argentina and its shift to lighter weight glass bottles represents a 24% lighter bottle than the industry's global average. But it's more than a mere technical change, says family member Lau...

Brave new food future at Palliser

When is the best time to take the plunge and employ one of the country's best chefs in a full tie role when you're a winery situated in a relatively remote village? If you were thinking of diving into such a venture and if you were listening to reports of the current economic uncertainty, now might not sound like the best time to do it but a brave chief executive has put her money where her mouth is and employed the first full time permanent one to grace the floors of Palliser Kitchen.Pip G...

French Film Festival Aotearoa is coming

It's officially six days - and counting, for those of us who are partial to an injection of all things French-inspired. The French Film Festival Aotearoa begins on Wednesday 4 June and runs through to the end of June. Topics and themes span a wide range from the nature of friendship to saving a family business.... well, I don't want to give to much away. Suffice to say that if the preview film of the festival, The French Job (Les Régles de L'Art) is anything to go by, we're all in for a treat.&...

Wine for cats and dogs? Yes, it's a thing

If your favourite feline is partial to a little catnip, a new catnip wine might appeal. It is a real thing and it was announced in Aotearoa New Zealand today. I have yet to personally smell or taste the new products but I grow a lot of fresh herbs, including catnip, and I can vouch for its potency as a strongly herbaceous substance to cats. Catnip (or Nepeta cataria) is thought to have been introduced to New Zealand as a garden herb in 1870 and has been seen to positively impact mood in app...

Redmetal wines live up to their name

Grant and Sue Edmonds carved a name for Redmetal Vineyards by championing Merlot when most of their contemporaries were singing from a Cabernet song sheet and, 34 years later, they're still swimming against the tide. Three new wines prove the point. Not that they are trying to make any particular point but their left field wines do it for them. They are Albarino, Cabernet Franc and Syrah, all of which highlight the diverse potential of Hawke's Bay to grow a wide range of grape varieties to make ...

Sauvignon from the south

As autumn moves swiftly and somewhat bone chillingly into winter in New Zealand, it's a full bodied dry white wine that took my fancy this week. Not because of personal preference but because of the exceptional skill of coaxing complexity from the most widely produced grape in this country - Sauvignon Blanc. This wine was released in the second half of last year and it replaces the outstanding forerunner, Pegasus Bay Sauvignon Semillon - which has, in a way, been reborn in the winery's new-ish M...

Less is more

This column was first published in Drinksbiz, May-June 2025, New ZealandAre we drinking less wine, better wine or different styles of wine and how does the industry adapt to changes in consumption patterns?Is wine consumption in long term decline or is the drop of 2.6 per cent in global consumption last year simply part of a natural cycle, which will rise again before we know it? If a report by the International Organisation of Vine and Wine last year is anything to go by, wine consump...

Can Vinarchy create a bright new future for wine?

Can a new global wine company lead the world's wine drinkers out of slumping sales into a bright new future?The launch of Vinarchy in April this year sees a new company with a vision to do just that, bringing many of the world's largest wine brands together under one roof, so to speak.“The global wine industry faces serious structural challenges. Global wine consumption has been declining for years, driven by changing consumer preferences and a shift to lower-alcohol drinks. Vinarchy will...

The Graduates new all day rosé

Three friends who met at the Eastern Institute of Technology (EIT) in Hawke's Bay have teamed up and called themselves The Graduates, which doubles as the moniker of their eponymous wine brand. They are Irene Noval, Matthew Walker and Chelsea Millar, who met while studying winemaking and viticulture course at EIT and they have a new wine out now.The new release is called All Day Rosé and it comes from the 2024 vintage in Martinborough. Some might this as a bit of a leading name but with sunny d...