Muscat of Alexandria grapes grown on the sandy volcanic soils of the island of Sicily yield a this delicate, yet sweet wine, with delightful notes of yellow peaches, melon and citrus fruits.

Cantine Pellegrino

Cantine Pellegrino is one of Sicily’s most important and prosperous wineries. Today they are one of very few families who can trace their lineage back to the original 19th Century founders of the Marsala trade.

Members of the Pellegrino family married into the Alagna, Renda, Tumbarello & Bellina families, members of which now collectively manage the company. 

In 1880 Paolo Pellegrino, local notary and vine grower, founded his winery in the heart of the city of Marsala on the West coast of Sicily. With the help of his son Carlo, he built the company up from nothing into one of Sicily’s leading Marsala producers. After the death of his father, Carlo took the reigns of the company, assisted by his wife Josephine Despagne, daughter of a famous Sauternes oenologist Oscar Pierre Despagne. 

Today the company has 150 hectares of vineyards, and three wineries. Pellegrino have been instrumental in putting Sicily on the winemaking map, with the family’s Marsala, fine wine and sweet Pantelleria wine, all exported around the world.

The House of Ruinart makes one of the most delicious champagnes we stock here in store; this sensationally full bodied, creamy blanc de blancs. This champagne is made 100% from Chardonnay and is a multi vintage blend with notes of intense white floral and peach aromas intermingled with hints of golden ripe yellow fruit and a complexity of white nutty notes on the finish. Crisp refreshing acidity adds length and tension to every great sip, which finishes with a lingering flavour. 

Most of the grapes in this wine and those in all Ruinart champagnes are grown in the Côte des Blancs and Montagne de Reims terroirs in Champagne.

* The House of Ruinart was first established in the Champagne region in 1729 and was inspired by a monk. 

Chablis is the northernmost wine region in Burgundy, which produces only Chardonnay. The cooler climate gives these wines crispness, acidity and a flinty minerality.

This wine is fresh and pure with an underlying minerality. The palate reveals notes of citrus combined with spicy aromas (fennel, lime blossom, cinnamon and hawthorn). Billaud-Simon wines offer exceptional ageing potential and will evolve well over time.

This Cabernet Malbec is made up of Cabernet Sauvignon, Malbec and Cabernet Franc. The varieties were hand-picked, de-stemmed and fermented separately in small open topped vats where they were gently hand plunged and pumped over to aid in extracting the maximum amount of flavour and colour from the berries. Following an extended maceration period the wine was transferred into French oak barrels where it spent 11 months.

This is a dark and brooding beast with fruits of the forest including Black Doris plum and spiced cherry. It is rich and powerful on the palate with a silky mouthfeel and well-pitched tannins. Attractively rounded with upfront fruit flavours this wine is very attractive now but will certainly reward with time in the cellar. Drink now through till 2030.

Belasco de Baquedano is a leading winery located in the Mendoza region of Argentina. The winery is lucky enough to have very old vines of original Malbec vines first planted in 1910 - these old vines are the secret to Belasco De Baquedano's success. The old vines consistently produce wines that are full-bodied, juicy and complex with layers of flavour development.

100% Malbec from vines that are over 100 years old.  6 months in oak barrels.

This blend boasts an elegant aromas and flavors of plums, cherry, and violet flowers. It is ripe with strawberries and dark fruit. This full-bodied red finishes with well integrated tannins and moderate oak.

This blend can pair with a handful of dishes but a few we highly recommend trying are: baked ham with a honey, Dijon and thyme glaze or an old fashioned meat loaf.

Spanish inspired, Australian made Tempranillo from the adventurous Chaffey Bros brand. This dry Aussie red is smooth, soft textured and tastes of ripe fruit flavours of red and dark plums, stewed and dried. It's made from two vineyards in the Barossa Valley, South Australia, one of them with 70+ years of vine age, which comes through in this wine's superb concentration of flavour - older vines are thought to deliver richer flavours. 

The inspiration for La Conquista comes from Spain's most famous red wine, Rioja, which is usually a blend. This is also a blend and uses the same grapes as found in Rioja - namely, Tempranillo with Grenache and Graciano (from the cooler Eden Valley) for support. 

The wine is named after the 1811 Battle of the Barrosa in Cadíz.

Beautiful dark and juicy flavours in this lively Cotes du Rhone, which offers great value for money and also offers a complex look at the smooth, appealing structure and velvet mouthfeel of wines from the southern Rhone Valley. 

Even more appeal, the Chapoutier wine team now seals with lovely red with a screw cap to ensure it tastes just the way it did when it was made at the winery. 

How is it possible to roll all these flavours into one affordable wine? Ask the Famille Perrin, one of the great winemaking families in southern France, who create this complex, fruity, earthy and fresh Cotes du Rhone from a blend of Grenache (mainly from their Prébois vineyard in Orange), Syrah from further north in Vinsobres and Mourvèdre. While many less interesting Cotes du Rhone are made from a straightforward blend of Grenache and Syrah, the addition of the dark, mocha-like flavours of Mourvèdre add depth, richness and smooth soft velvet mouthfeel. 

The grapes in this wine were destemmed and fermented in temperature controlled stainless steel tanks between 150hl and 190hl. Extraction is done by pumping over and the frequency is determined by tasting. The separate component wines are transferred partly to oak barrels and partly to stainless steel vats for a year's maturation, prior to blending. 

The result is outstanding dry red wine flavours with rich soft fruit appeal and a long finish; all to be hoped for from the family who own Chateau de Beaucastel.

This is a great young red with medium term ageing ability and especially fresh and consistent thanks to being sealed with a screw cap.

The name Opawa means smoky river in Maori and this lovely light to medium bodied Pinot Noir is named after the old Opawa River. Flavours of earthy smokey notes are supported by fresh wild red berry aromas of strawberries, raspberries and plums. Supple silky acidity adds length to every tasty sip.  

Winemaker Clive Jones makes this wine was made from a range of vineyards in Marlborough. The grapes are cold soaked and fermented with indigenous yeast with the wine being pressed into French oak barriques for maturation, before being clarified and bottled.

Certified organic grapes were used to make this new 2019 Pinot Noir from Churton Estate's second generation of winemakers, Ben and Jack Weaver. Fermentation was with indigenous yeasts and the result is a youthful, fruity Pinot with a lively flavours and a light to medium body. It's a great wine to drink lightly chilled in summer or as a light bodied winter red. Satisfying, refreshing and with complex notes; a lovely Marlborough Pinot Noir. 

Churton founder and winemaker Sam Weaver cut his teeth on the classic wines of the world while working in fine wine retail in the United Kingdom. His background is in microbiology and he was raised on a farm, so when he and his wife Mandy founded Churton Estate, it combined all of his passions. The couple and their adult sons, have created one of this country's most high quality small wineries, which lives up to the dream of creating 100% estate grown grapes, 100% certified organic production and 100% bottled on site, nearly all of the wines without fining or filtration. All grapes are hand picked and natural yeasts ferment the majority of Churton wines. These incremental qualitative decisions impact at every step of their winemaking provides exceptional quality grapes which in turn express themselves in outstanding wines.

The Natural State wines are the brainchild of second generation family winemakers, Ben and Jack Weaver.

One of the best bubblies made in New Zealand, and always a vintage wine with the grapes 100% from one year and 100% Pinot Noir. Tastes dry, yeasty fresh with notes of red berry flavours in a full bodied bubbly with a long finish.
Long ageing on tirage – aka lees (decomposing yeast cells) in bottle - provides depth, body and a lingering finish. 

Winemaker Clive Jones launched Nautilus Winery's sparkling wine programme and is on a constant mission to refine these already outstanding wines, which comes through in the two different sparkling wines he makes. The rose is always a single vintage wine and expresses the depth and richness of Pinot Noir made in the traditional method of sparkling winemaking with long lees aging. This wine is super fresh flavour, has a full body and long, crisp, refreshing finish. 

Maestro is made in the warmest vintages only in North Canterbury. It is a dense, dark, dry, full bodied blend of Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon with a smidgeon of Malbec in for good measure.

Palliser Estate Chardonnay is a creamy smooth, super appealing full bodied wine for  Chardonniastas and those who like their Chardonnays crisp and fresh. 

This wine was made from hand picked grapes, all estate grown by Palliser and a high proportion of them certified organic. The wild yeast ferment accentuates oatmeal and savoury notes, which support the fresh nectarine like fruit flavours in this wine. 

The mouthfeel highlights barrel ferment characters of creaminess balanced by a line of ripe acidity. The wine flows with energy, concentration and a rounded core carrying to a long, creamy, nutty finish. This is an elegant and softly concentrated Chardonnay with harmonious layers of flavour. 

Complex Hawke's Bay blend modelled on the best of Bordeaux as a blend of Cabernets Sauvignon, Franc and with a dash of Merlot to add soft, smooth, sweet black plum textures and flavours. This wine has great structure and intensity of flavour. A silky attack with concentrated black currant and spicy plum flavours some liquorice and mineral elegance with a long flavored fine grained tannin finish. This wine will improve with cellaring. 

The Lovegrass Shiraz is an easy drinking yet full bodied wine. Juicy ripe fruits, earthiness and integrated spicy oak are present on the nose. The palate is rich with blackberry and chocolate notes which are complemented with moderate acidity. This is a great example of a robust Australian Shiraz.