Puriri Hills Estate is a great red from a small wine producer just outside the village of Clevedon, in the rolling green hills southeast of Auckland. It's an unlikely destination for a top red as there are few other vineyards in the area, which is warm with a maritime climate - the coast can be seen from the vineyard and is about a 10 minute drive away.   The wines are made solely from estate grown grapes from the four acres on site, which include Merlot, Carmenère, Cabernet Sauvignon, Malbec and Cabernet Franc. This bunch of classic Bordeaux red grapes inspired...

Massena is new in store from the Barossa Valley and is a wine producer showing there is more to life than Shiraz in South Australia. Here is the trio of wines we have chosen to dip our toes in the water of lovely full bodied, smooth reds that highlight another string or three to our nearest wine producing neighbour's bow.  The 2017 Massena Moonlight Run Mataro Grenache Shiraz RRP $36.99 Fans of GSMs will love this wine from Massena, which turns the classic formula of Grenache, Shiraz, Mourvedre on its head. This is an MGS, Mataro, Grenache, Shiraz, and the Mataro here...

Timorasso is one of our favourite Italian white grape varieties here at Regional Wines and most definitely one of the world's least well known ones. This is no surprise really because Timorasso nearly died out after the phylloxera epidemic of the late 1800s, which decimated up to two thirds of vineyards throughout Europe. Luckily, Timorasso has been revived. Thanks to the Massa family who live in the town of Tortona in Piemonte, this zesty white grape has grown from less than three hectares to 110 hectares today. These are shared among many different producers in the tiny hillside appellation of Colli Tortonesi DOC...

Argentina's love affair with Malbec was sparked in April 1853 by a flame that president Domingo Faustino Sarmiento had for great wine. He commissioned French soil expert Michel Aimé Pouget to bring classic French vines to Argentina because he wanted to raise the quality and perception of his country's wine. Malbec was among the vine cuttings that Pouget brought with him and the rest is history. It was a fortuitous decision to bring Pouget’s expertise to Argentina where vineyards planted at high altitude benefited massively from the plentiful sunshine, cool nights and dry climate. These factors suit Malbec down to the ground or up in the mountains, as the case happens to...

Chianti is one of Italy's most famous wines and also the name of an area that was one of the first in the world to be officially marked out as a wine zone in 1716.  The original Chianti zone included the land around Radda, Gaiole, Castellina and Greve but has since been expanded to include a far wider region, which stretches 160 kilometres from north to south. This is means the wines can be extremely varied.  Baron Ricasoli is credited as having come up with the original Chianti formula or should we say, formulas, with two types of wine labelled as Chianti. He...