Kumeu River Wines and the owners, the Brajkovich family, are icons of the New Zealand wine industry. This Chardonnay consistently over delivers for its modest price tag and is a dry, medium bodied wine with nutty, fresh, savoury elements derived from fermentation in old French oak barriques for 80% of the wine with the balancing 20% in stainless steel to preserve freshness. 

This wine is great drinking now as a fab go-to wine, any time.

Kumeu River Wines began life as San Marino Wines in 1944 when Croatian immigrant couple, Mick and Katé Brajkovich, bought a small property with a vineyard on it. Their descendents now own and run Kumeu River Wines, which produces 250,000 bottles of wine annually from its owns 30 hectares of vineyards in Kumeu and from another 10 hectares, owned by local grape growers. 

Roaring Meg is one of Central Otago's most popular wines and is named, cheekily, after a lady of the night during the infamous gold rush days in this southern region, in the 1800s. 

Pinot Gris is the most popular and widely planted white grape in this region, although it pales in comparison to Pinot Noir, which makes up over 80% of the area's vineyards. Gris is a soft, smooth and approachable white wines, such as this lightly spicy version with a good balance of fresh southern acidity, thanks to the cool climate here. 

If you're looking for an organically certified, approachable white wine, here's a lovely off dry wine with white fleshed pear flavours and a hint of fresh lemon captured in a soft, smooth, dry white for drinking now or soon rather than for cellaring. It will hold its own for two to three years and offers good value for money.

Dry and deliciously good Kiwi roses don't get this good very often. If you notice Whitehaven Rose is paler pink than previously, it is and this wine also happens to be the driest style ever made, with under one gram of residual sugar per litre. It's made from earlier picked Pinot Noir grapes to retain fresh acidity. Minimum skin contact time provides a pale colour a lively red fruit flavours with a long finish.

The story of Whitehaven Wines

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.

Daniel le Brun is the first person to make traditional method sparkling wine (that's code for made the same way as champagne) in New Zealand. He has since sold his own brand name and created another sparkling wine company. 

This wine remains one of New Zealand's most loved and well known bubbles from Chardonnay and Pinot Noir grapes grown in Marlborough. It has extended lees aging time to gain its fresh bakery flavours and long finish. A well known wine that delivers on body, dryness, depth of flavour - and all at such a modest price. No wonder it's a fave for so many New Zealanders.

Moy Hall in Martinborough is an eight hectare vineyard with a restaurant and cellar door on site. It was purchased by Phil and Carolyn McArthur, who produce wine and employ a professional chef to produce some of the wine village's finest food for day time dining. 

Aromas of strawberry and red floral notes, such as old fashioned roses, combine in this wine which is made from 88% Pinot Noir (all handpicked, gently crushed, and cool pressed) blended with 12% Syrah (also handpicked and whole-bunch pressed).

This is dry and refreshing. 

This is a beautifully silky smooth Central Otago Pinot Noir made entirely from estate grown fruit at a small vineyard in Bendigo, one of the warmest corners (and often the first to harvest) in Central Otago. This wine comes from one of the driest, most settled vintages, weather-wise, in the past five years, and those qualities translate through to an intensely aromatic Pinot, driven by fresh floral notes and ripe dark cherry flavours in a silky textured wine. This wine is great value and super tasty.

The name Ballasalla comes from a village on the Isle of Man where one of the winery's founders, Tim Kerruish, was born. 

Stony soils, hot days and cool nights make Craggy Range's Gimblett Chardonnay the dry, full bodied, fleshy white wine that it is. Grapes were 100% destemmed and fermented in French oak barriques with a combination of indigenous and innoculated yeasts followed by nine months aging in barriques, 23% new.
The result is a creamy, smooth, dry Chardonnay for drinking now and over the next four to five years. 

A stunner. Great value for money.

Elegant and robust Syrah from the hand of Rod McDonald - one of New Zealand's masters with this varietal. Plush dark fruit forward flavours lead into a full bodied, dry and spicy Syrah with a long and savoury finish.

Flinty, dry and distinctively herbaceous with beautifully balanced tropical notes. This lovely lively wine puts Martinborough's best foot forward in this refreshingly succulent Sauvignon Blanc from Craggy Range, a family owned company based in Hawke's Bay which also now owns a significant proportion of vineyard land in Martinborough, all of it in the beautiful Te Muna Valley. 

This top notch Martinborough Sauvignon Blanc tastes of flinty freshness with notes of tropical fruit. It is named Te Muna on the label, in homage to its site, and is made from grapes grown on the lower terrace of the winery's substantial vineyard holdings at Te Muna Road. New vines are now in the ground further along the road on higher terraces and will come onstream for use in Sauvignon Blanc produced by this winery in future.

Clearview Sea Red is a deliciously full bodied sweet wine made from a blend of red grapes and fortified to retain sweetness, raising its alcohol to 17% ABV, producing a big, loveable cuddly sweetie. Ideal for drinking with cheddar cheese on a cold night by a warm fire or anytime you're looking for a delicious sweetie. 

Clearview Estate sprang to life in 1986 when Tim Turvey and  business partner Helma van den Bergare purchased the neglected but historic Vidal's No.2 Vineyard at Te Awanga in coastal Hawke's Bay. This is their take on fortified dessert reds such as port, displaying a weighty, unctuous palate of dense berry fruits and plums, which finishes dry and long. The wine is blended across vintages and the base variety is Malbec. Drink now for a fruitier style or cellar carefully for several years.

About Clearview Estate

Clearview Estate is one of oldest, most well established wineries in Hawke's Bay and is situated on the Te Awanga Coast, south of Napier. It's a great place to visit for tastings at the cellar door as well as lunch in the dappled shade of the established courtyard area. The winery was founded by Tim Turvey, winemaker and co-owner. The current winemaker is the multi talented Matt Kirby.

Elephant Hill Syrah is made from grapes grown on two vineyards, at the winery's home block at Te Awanga and on the Gimblett Gravels, inland from the coast. It is a co ferment of 99% Syrah with 1% Viognier; a classic northern Rhone winemaking method, which provides wines with pronounced dark fruit flavours, fleshy texture and spicy notes. 

Mt Difficulty Pinot Noir is regarded as an icon Pinot Noir from the world's southernmost wine region, the dramatically beautiful mountainous, Central Otago. This wine is made by the Dicey family, one of the first to plant grapes in Bannockburn, south of the Kawarau River. Their pioneering work in this region triggered rapid expansion in the area's modern wine history.

This wine is dry with powerful fruit driven flavours and a smooth, approchoable style, even when this wine is youthful. It drinks well now and can age for a further four to five years. 

It's easy to see why this wine has won gold medals in its long history; the intense aromatic appeal of Turkish Delight and old fashioned red roses is deliciously well balanced in this lovely white from Marlborough.

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.

Central Otago Pinot Noir is one of New Zealand's great wine success stories, especially when it comes from the sun drenched rocky soils of Bannockburn, one of the great sub regions of this majestic area. 

The Mysterious Diggings Vineyard in Bannockburn is on the site of a former gold mine and is a dry, fruit driven and smooth Central Otago Pinot with an accessible price.