Here is a Pinot Noir that shows how good Marlborough Pinot can be. Smooth with a hint of spice here and a touch of dark red cherry flavour there, this is complex and delicious. It drinks well now and can also age for a further three to four years.

Clos Henri began 22 years ago in Marlborough when the French Bourgeois family expanded their winemaking from the heart of Sancerre in the tiny village of Chavignol to Blenheim, in 2001. Now that their vines are 22 years of age , the family feels that they are only now starting to reflect and express the taste of the land. This family retains their land and winemaking in Chavignol where they have made wine for 11 generations.

Marlborough is white wine country and while it's mostly all about Sauvignon and Chardonnay, this spectacular new dry-ish Riesling is full of deliciously zingy flavours of lemon zest, fresh apples and ripe peach, coupled with an intensely lingering, flavoursome finish.

This wine is intensely aromatic on the palate and has lingering flavours with a crisp dry finish.

The north facing Ashmore Vineyard receives all day sun and that, coupled with cool Marlborough nights, makes for ideal cool climate growing conditions for the Riesling grapes that are grown on the free draining, deep alluvial silt, overlying clay sub soils. Ashmore Vineyard was planted in 1997 with conversion to organics beginning in 2009 and full certification from Bio-Gro in 2012.

This special library release is a one off which we have been lucky enough to secure a small amount of while featuring Palliser Estate as our winery of the month. This is the greatest dry aromatic white of the Palliser stable. It's fleshy, flavoursome and beautifully peachy buoyed up by the balance of great lime zest and a lingering citrusy finish. 

Dry Riesling is Palliser Estate's unsung hero white wine and this seven year old dry version is a stellar example. 

It's ripe and fleshy with beautiful balance provided by the citrusy acidity which adds length to this lovely wine. 

The grapes are grown on the organically certified Om Santi Vineyard and the Palliser Estate Vineyard.

The name Mon Cheval is in homage to the owner's champion racehorse, Under Cover Lover, whose winning ways helped the dream of making wine possible. The 2.2 hectare vineyard is found at the entrance to Weka Pass in North Canterbury, and is planted with Pinot Noir and only a small amount of Riesling.

Hand picked grapes and cool temperature fermentation in stainless steel both preserve the fruit forward flavours in this wine, making it one of the country's purest, freshest dry whites. Under the radar? Yes. Worth trying? Definitely. If Riesling has yet to make it onto your radar, this wine is the perfect place to start.

Commercial description

Terroir in a glass – very site specific, sophisticated and unique. On the nose, blackberries, spice, violets and wild herb aromatics. Medium bodied with an interesting mix of red fruits and savoury notes. A complex, high energy wine, perfect to enjoy today or to patiently cellar.

Our flagship Pinot Noir, sourced primarily from our southern block. It carries the name of Surveyor – John Turnbull Thomson linking both the land and its fruits to the vineyard owners, PM and David Hall-Jones family heritage.

35% whole bunch and 18% new oak.

Akitu A1 has all the bells and whistles of great Pinot Noir with seductive red floral and fruity aromas leading into a full bodied, silky and structured wine with 40% whole bunch fermentation and five different clones of Pinot Noir adding complexity. The dominant clone in the blend is Abel (a clone is a variation of a grape variety), which lends this Pinot its impressive structure and a silky mouthfeel. It goes without saying that it takes a warm year and ripe grapes to include a high proportion of whole bunches in the fermentation tank, stalks and all. This wine benefits from its high portion of whole bunches and is possibly the best A1 from Akitu yet. A modest 20% new French oak was used to mature the wine. This lends it weight, smoothness and a soft mouthfeel while allowing the fruit to remain in second place after the charry complexity.

The home of Akitu 

Andrew Donaldson planted his vineyard with 100% Pinot Noir in 2002 and has since developed three distinctive styles of wine from this great red grape variety. Two reds (Akitu A 1 and Akitu A2) lead the production while a Pinot Blanc is now part of the high quality stable of wines from this producer. 

Donaldson employs winemaker P J Charteris to make the wines. 

At Mt Barker, in New Zealand's South Island, in a high glacial valley of sunshine and rain shadow on the edge of the earth, each season leave its own vivid imprint on our vintage.  Extreme temperature variations, alpine air, altitude, adversity... all the wild elements of this exhilarating land combine in a Pinot Noir of great quality from the world's southernmost wine region.

Dry, dark and full bodied fleshy black plum flavours with a beautiful silky textured mouthfeel. This single vineyard Pinot Noir is made from  hand picked grapes grown on the Wrekin Vineyard in the Southern Valleys, Marlborough. Most of the grapes were destemmed with a small portion of 15% whole bunches to add structure and weight to the wine, which was fermented warm (up to 31 degrees Celcius) then transferred to French oak, 27% new for 10 months of ageing. This wine has hints of smoky flavour with a rich, dense earthy aroma leading into beautiful dark fruit flavours of plums and black cherries.

Whitehaven Wines began life in 1994 as a romantic business for a couple of corporate escapees, Sue and Greg White, who had given up life in the rat race of Auckland for another kind of life aboard their yacht. When sailing around the country, they took shelter in the Marlborough Sounds from Pacific storms and fell in love with the region. An easy thing to do when harbouring in the spectacularly pristine waters of the Sounds. They decided to settle there on terra firma once more and try their hands at wine production, hiring a winemaker and beginning a business which has now been around for 26 years. Greg has sadly passed away now, leaving a legacy as well as his wife and daughter, Sam, to run the winery. Their winemaker is Peter Jackson.

This is one of New Zealand’s best bubbles and comes from Pinot Central; also known as Central Otago, a region that is characterised by having 80% of its vineyards planted in Pinot Noir. 

Quartz Reef Brut NV began life when winemaker Rudi Bauer teamed up with a visiting French winemaker Clothilde Chauvet (daughter of champagne maker Marc Chauvet). Together they pioneered this high quality, traditional method sparkling wine, using mostly Pinot Noir (now 72% of the blend) with the balance being Chardonnay. The wine is typically aged for two years on lees in bottle following its second fermentation - longer than most champagnes. No wonder it massively over delivers on both taste and price. This is a stunning sparkling wine. Ignore at your peril.

VINEYARDS Parcels of Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon were hand-picked from selected sites on the  gravel soils of the old Ngaruroro River, and old vine Merlot from the Bridge Pa region.  Bridge Pa Triangle soils feature fine silt loam over red metal gravels, while the gravel sites protected by Roys Hill, feature gravel over fine silt. These sites are free draining and low in fertility, resulting in struggling vines producing fruit of great concentration. Low yielding vines, open canopy management, managed irrigation and Sustainable Winegrowing New Zealand farmed were common to all sites. Bridge Pa Merlot delivers ripe, dark plums which compliments the spicy brighter fruits from the gravels. Cabernet thrives on gravel sites and contributes structure, acidity and fragrant berry fruit notes. 

WINEMAKING Batches of hand harvested fruit was chilled overnight before processing the following day. Chilled bunches were hand sorted and de-stemmed, and whole berries were transferred to open fermenters with some foot stomping. Whole bunches were also incorporated in some of the Merlot fermenters. The berries were cold soaked before fermentation, with pumping over twice per day then pressed to barriques at the  end of fermentation. The Merlot and Cabernet matured for 21 months in new and  seasoned French oak barriques. Blended in December 2019 and bottled in January  2020, the final blend is approximately 70% Merlot and 30% Cabernet Sauvignon. 

SENSORY An elegant Merlot Cabernet blend which exhibits lifted aromatics of fragrant  berry fruits, sweet French oak, and underlying lavender and thyme. Complex and  textural, seamless tannins harmoniously support red and black fruits, earthiness,  and spice. Tautly poised to develop beautifully with bottle age.

Mission Estate Jewelstone Chardonnay is a pale straw coloured wine with complex aromatics of sweet stone fruit, marzipan and struck flint notes. The palate is full and fruit forward with a fine structure and a long clean finish.

Savoury, structured and classically beautiful Bordeaux which drinks beautifully with complex black olive, dried herb and fragrant dark fruit flavours now; made from 48% Merlot, 40% Cabernet Sauvignon and 12% Cabernet Franc. 

Chateau Magnol has 31 hectares of grapes in the Haut-Médoc, west of the city of Bordeaux and has gravel as well as sandy soils in its vineyards. It has gained the classification of Cru Bourgeois, which this commandingly impressive wine more than lives up to. 

Big but elegant, red fruited but powerful Nebbiolo made in small volumes every year from the Albesani vineyard in Neive, situated 230 metres above sea level on two hectares with average vine age of 50 years. This wine was first made in 2019 with long fermentation and maceration in oak at 30°C followed by ageing in large Slavonian oak barrels for up to 18 months with another 24 months ageing in bottle, pre release. 

Highly complex, open and fruity aromas with red fruit flavours and complex tastes of hay, spices and earth all providing great depth and fullness. Drinking well now and capable of long term ageing. 

Juicy red with complex savoury notes following in the wake of lush berry flavours, made 100% from Cabernet Franc from Domaine Moly Saumur. This is a new producer for us in store at Regional and we're thrilled to bring this wine to you from French winemaker Etienne Moly, a respected producer in the Loire Valley, France.