Charles Wiffen and his family are well known for producing well priced (affordable), well liked (very good quality) wines in a range of styles, all from Marlborough grapes.

While Merlot is the second most planted red in Marlborough, it lags a long way behind the popular Pinot Noir, but wines such as this show another, softer side to the red wine story in this country's biggest wine region. Good drinking now and very good value for money.

Un-oaked Chardonnay made with grapes sourced from throughout the Central Otago region and exhibiting the region's natural elegant fruit flavours and mineral complexity. The wine is fermented in tank to retain its bright fruit and is left to rest on its yeast lees to gain some doughy complexity and softness. This is a refreshing full-bodied wine, unencumbered by oak and superb with food.

Deep, dark, rich and spicy with multi layered textural refinement, a full body, dry flavours and full spectrum of dark ripe plums held together in a beautifully structured sparkling wine. This special wine represents the great heights of bottle fermented Shiraz - it is the only Australian sparking wine, red or white, that features in the Langton's Classification VII of Australian Wine.

Rockford Wines' legacy

Rockford Wines is an icon itself and a relatively new one, established in 1971 by Robert O'Callaghan, who has forged a reputation for preserving winemaking tradition and saving many of the world's oldest grape vines from being pulled up in the Australian Government's vine pull schemes of the 1970s and 1980s.

The Rockford vintage shed houses equipment from 50 to 100 years ago, which was discarded by other wineries as modernisation took over.

Lovely plush Shiraz with peppery notes and bold plum flavours in a full bodied, beautiful expression of South Australia's most popular and most widely planted red grape. Dry, impressive and long on flavour. This wine will age for at least seven to eight years. 

Langmeil is owned by the Lindner family, which has been making wine for six generations in the Barossa Valley.

Yalumba is a family owned and fiercely independent wine producer with roots back to 1849. This is their take on the classic Australian blend of Cabernet Sauvignon and Shiraz.

The Cabernet Sauvignon was sourced from four vineyards in the Barossa Valley. The diversity of the vineyard selection provides the rich, lifted Cabernet Sauvignon aromatics and palate structure for which The Signature is renowned. The Shiraz comes from vineyards of varying age, with the oldest planted in 1925. These blocks are of sandy loam, featuring yellow sand and ochre clay over red clay. The combination of these Barossa Valley blocks provides a Shiraz with sweetness, fullness, depth and layers of complexity.

Matured for 19 months in 25% new French barriques and Hungarian hogsheads, balance in older French and Hungarian barriques and hogsheads.

Deep, dense purple-red in colour. Seductive and alluring florals, cool mints, red pomegranate with fine blackberry fruits and dark cherry aromas. The palate is delightfully generous with dark red cherry fruit that merges into ironstone tannins. A medium to full bodied wine with a long, flowing tannin profile. A very refined and elegantly styled Signature

A lovely fruit forward and pure sparkling wine made in the same way as Champagne from 45% Chardonnay, 35% Pinot Noir and 20% Gamay. Nine months on the lees gives this real depth with subtle notes of brioche combining with its citrus and stone fruit flavours.

The star of the Médoc, Cabernet Sauvignon is given pride of place in this French expression of a classic left bank Bordeaux red blend. Its structured body provides a beautiful wintery night's red to enjoy by the fire with cheddar and great company. 

This is a wine made for drinking now or over the next two to three years. 

Now owned by the renowned sherry producer Gonzalez Byass, Bodegas Beronia was created in 1973 by a wine and food club and is now considered a benchmark Rioja house.

A deep picota cherry red colour with a garnet edge, this wine is clean and bright. It is complex on the nose, with aromas of cherry and raspberry standing out, complemented by herbal notes - rosemary and thyme - and hints of cinnamon and tobacco. Very fresh and tantalising on the palate, this wine displays a plethora of flavours, the most prominent of which are the confected notes of vanilla and chocolate.

This regional blend of Burgundian Pinot Noir is new in store and impressive with its clean, fresh, savoury flavours, which underpin its lively red fruit and juicy acidity. This is beautiful drinking right now with firm tannins and adding depth to the mid palate and length of flavour to the finish. 

Good drinking now or in the next two to three years.

Grapes: Monastrell (Mourvèdre), Cabernet Sauvignon and Syrah

93/100 Wine Spectator

“Bright cherry, berry and currant flavours mingle with liquorice, black tea and mineral notes, giving way to a floral and minerally finish. The firm tannins are well-integrated and juicy acidity keeps this lively.” 

Tasting Note: Intense cherry-red colour with violet shades. Delicate black fruit aroma with high roast and smoky features. Structured, subtle and smart palate, ripe appetising and a sweet tannins marked by elegance.

Winemaking Notes: This wine is the result of a rigorous selection process, choosing only the best grapes from the Monastrell and Cabernet Sauvignon variety. The grapes were harvested in the third week of October at their optimum ripening point in 15 kg boxes. The selected fruit was chosen by the same wise hands that did it the previous year. The grapes corresponding to each variety were macerated in contact with the skin and fermented for 20/30 days at a controlled temperature of 28oC. It has spent 12 months in new french and american oak barrels.

Pale, dry pink wines are all the rage right now from all over the world, and this Portuguese example is made from more than 10 different indigenous Portuguese and international grape varieties, including Syrah, Cabernet Sauvignon and Touriga Nacional. Together these grapes provide complex red berry aromas with savoury notes of herbs and fresh lees influence from light aging prior to release. 

A great match with all seafood.

The lovely dry French rose comes from a great wine producer called Astralabe, a name that is extremely familiar to New Zealanders, only this producer is completely underelated to our own Astrolabe wines. 

Chene Bleu Rose is a relatively new wine brand at Regional from an exciting, high altitude vineyard in Vaucluse, in the region of Provence-Alpes-Cotes-d'Azur. All of the wines are certified organic with the EU and made to exactly quality standards. Hand picked grapes, double sorted in the vineyard, tiny yields and obvious high quality flavours are just some of the reasons to drink these wines.

This dry rose more than lives up to the promise of a refreshing southern French wine and it's made mostly from the Grenache grape which is blended here with Syrah, Cinsault, Mourvedre and Rolle - also known in Italy as Vermentino.

This is a great French rose to serve chilled and enjoy with salads on a warm summer day.

A complex wine with red fruit flavours. Big, elegant and ripe tannin structures. Will over time show more secondary and forest floor characteristics.

Another cracker from South Africa's master craftsman Duncan Savage. This is a blend of Cinsaut, Grenache and Syrah from Citrusdal Mountain in the Olifants River Valley, Western Cape. This is a pretty wine real depth and sees 70% whole clusters in the ferment. 

"The wine shows a real individuality and personality with bright fragrant violet perfume, sappy spicy peppery raspberry and redcurrant confit complexity, hints of sun raisined cranberries, cured bresaola, boiled raspberry sweets and wild strawberries. The palate weight is soft and sensual, combining the best of both Grenache and Cinsault to form an impressively harmonious, silky soft sappy red blend. The wine seems to grow exponentially in the glass, unfurling and unravelling to reveal layers of strawberry jam, raspberry compote and Turkish delight all framed with bright crystalline acids that really amplify the wines purity, minerality and sense of place.

Such a pretty wine with the sleekest and most polished tannins and a mellow fruit intensity. Despite its eminent drinkability in youth, this is no frivolous ?vin de soif? and could just maybe, over time, acquire a similar cult following to that of Duncan?s excellent Cinsault-dominated Follow The Line red from Darling. A very confident debut!" Drink from 2018 to 2028+. (93/100 Greg Sherwood MW)

This cuvee is made up of a blend of 60% Grenache and 40% Syrah, from the Garrigues plateau located near the village of Sarrians. This wine is highly perfumed with aromas of ripe red berries and smoky minerality. The generous palate offers intense red berry and lavender flavors and a touch of white pepper.