MiruMiru translates to sparkling in Maori and has been trademarked as the name of Jane Hunter's bubblies. Hunter is a fan of pink bubbly and her winemaking team produce this one mostly from Pinot Noir as 55% of the blend with the balance being 42% Chardonnay with a 3% touch of Pinot Meunier. This trio is the classic combination used in the Champagne region where wines must be aged for at least 18 months prior to release on the market. That?s the exact timeframe that Hunter?s winemaking team decided to age this lively, dry pink bubbles for too. It contains 6.4 grams of residual sugar per litre and is a deliciously full bodied expression of sparkling Pinot with Chardonnay adding crispness and balance. 

Member of Methode Marlborough 

Kirsten and Richard Searle are great champions of Chenin Blanc in Gisborne and theirs is made with grapes from the Briant's vineyard in the Patutahi region just across the river from Matawhero. Aromas in this wine are all about rich citrus blossom, supported by white floral and honeysuckle flavours combined with fresh acidity and a medium body. A stunning alternative medium dry white - great drinking, lightly chilled, year round. 

If you like a lighter style of Chardonnay, you'll love this tasty Gisborne white.

One of Central Otago's best kept secrets - great whites made from Chardonnay, a grape that thrives in the deep south as this beauty shows. It's full bodied, dry and made from certified organic grapes grown at the Morrison Vineyard at Pisa; one of the most highly regarded sub regions for grape growing in Central Otago. 

Grapes were pressed straight to barrel for fermentation with native vineyard yeasts, entirely in older French oak with no new oak at all. The wine was then matured in the same barrels for a year. 

The result is a beautiful dry, richly textured, smooth and creamy Chardonnay balanced by great southern acidity which gives Central Otago a distinctive edge when producing the world's most popular white wine. 

The home and winery of Mount Edward is situated in Gibbston, 25 kilometres from Queenstown.  Vineyards are there, in Bannockburn and at PIsa. 

Stone Paddock Chardonnay is a lightly oaked wine. Showing ripe tropical fruit and peach aromas with fine grapefruit and mineral undertones. The gentle influence of oak accentuates the sweet stonefruit, melon and grapefruit flavours. The texture is creamy and luscious with a fine minerality on the finish. 

Tony Bish's Golden Egg Chardonnay is one of the best in the country and  is fermented in an egg shaped concrete fermentation vat, which is designed to maximise the fullness and creamy style of Chardonnay at its smoothest, while retaining vibrant acidity. This is a stellar wine. One of the best from the Bay and from the country. Outstanding. 

Larry McKenna loves a Chardonnay made in a fresh, crisp style with creamy texture but balanced by bright acidity, a medium to full body and a long finish. So, if big buttery Chardonnays are your thing, this wine will meet your hopes in a textural fashion. Which is another way of saying, try this great white made in a fresh style.

It's made from grapes grown on Te Muna Road, Martinborough, which were planted in 1999. The wine goes through malolactic fermentation with lees stirring to enhance texture and it aged for 11 months in French oak, 20% of it new.

Another Malbec cracker from the Catena stables.

The Alamos Malbec has a dark purple colour with violet highlights. The nose offers bright black berry aromas with light floral notes and a touch of toast. The mouth-feel is full and rich, with ripe, concentrated cassis and black raspberry fruit interwoven with a touch of chocolate and sweet spice from light oak aging. The finish shows ripe, silky tannins."

Acustic is an old vines blend of Carignan and Garnatxa from the Montsant region in Spain. This is a somewhat Rhone-like wine with red fruit flavours complemented by balanced spice and herbal notes. This expressive wine is bottled without fining or filtration.

This is one of Marchese Antinori's top Tuscan wines and is made from the Peppoli Vineyard in the Chianti Classico DOCG. This wine was first made in 1985 and is a full bodied Chianti Classico with firm smooth tannins and high acidity, which is balanced by the ripe dark fruit characters and silky finish. 

It was aged in large Slovenian oak barrels with a small portion aged in stainless steel to retain fresh fruit flavours and balance. 

THE CHIANTI CLASSICO APPELLATION

Chianti Classico is the heart of the wider Chianti production zone and its wines are distinguished by a trademarked black rooster on their labels. The wines of Chianti Classico are higher in quality and noticeably so in taste than wines labelled Chianti, which come from a broader area in Tuscany. The wines taste better because the vines are planted on hillsides with a higher degree of  iron rich soils and a greater diurnal temperature range, which provides more powerful, riper fruit flavours, which are balanced by higher acidity thanks to the cooler night time temperatures. 

The Sangiovese grape must make up 80% of all wines labelled Chianti Classico compared to 70% Sangiovese for wines labelled Chianti. 

Chianti was first defined as a wine producing sub region within Tuscany in 1716 by the Grand Duke of Tuscany Cosimo III, whose wanted to protect the integrity of the wines and prevent fraud. The Chianti Classico Wine Consortium was formed in 1924 with the distinctive Black Rooster trademark chosen to feature on the labels. 

Amaranta is a cru wine obtained from Abruzzo's most important red grape, the Montepulciano D'Abruzzo. This is a deep red wine with an intense perfume of red fruit and complex spice characters. The palate is well structured, complex and elegant, with a long, rich finish. 

Perrier Jouet Champagne is a smooth and creamy, full bodied champagne made from grapes grown in over 70 villages in the Cotes du Blancs in the Champagne region; a Chardonnay dominant part of the region, which comes through in the creamy rich taste. 

This Champagne house was established in 1811 by Pierre-Nicolas-Marie Perrier, who added the maiden name of his wife, Adèle Jouët, to the name. They settled in the town of Épernay, where the company owns vineyards Aÿ, Avize, Cramant and Mailly. Many of the holdings are planted with Chardonnay, which brings delicacy and freshness to this lovely sparkling style. 

Veuve Clicquot is one of the world's biggest selling champagnes and is produced by Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessey in a range of styles and packaging. 

Veuve is named after the late, great Widow Clicquot, who was left not only a widow aged 27 but also in charge of running a champagne house. Her legacy is to have left both the brand and the region in better condition than she found them, mostly famously by inventing riddling; the turning of the bottle to remove the yeast sediment into its neck, prior to disgorgement. This resulted in higher quality, cleaner, fresher bubbles in both look and taste. Her quest was quality and she is widely credited with having raised it significantly in the Champagne region and in the bottles it produces.
This rose is typically a blend of base wines with 12% of still red Pinot Noir.

If you like Chardonnay, you'll love this sparkling Hawke's Bay blancs de blancs made from  Alpha Domus winery. 

All of the grapes in this wine were hand picked, whole bunch pressed and fermented to bone dry (one gram of residual sugar). It was made from 26 year old Clone 6 Chardonnay vines grown at Bridge Pa in Hawke’s Bay and disgorged at Soljans in West Auckland, which has all the gear for making high end sparkling wine. 

This beautiful creamy, full bodied bubbly over delivers big time, showing yet again just how good New Zealand's best sparkling wines can be.