Dice is a New Zealand first - a wine with a vintage which is high quality, fun and funky in a 2-litre box, which puts a new spin on the well known theme of convenience because this wine is all about quality, no holds barred. A blend of Pinot Noir grapes from several vineyards in Bannockburn is used to create this superlative, deliciously good Pinot Noir with its bright bold cherries and ripe fruit flavours underpinned by a medium body and smooth texture in a wine with a long finish. 

This is a wonderfully exotic wine with aromas of flowers, pear and melon. The palate has nectarine and tropical fruit richness which is balanced with a smooth refreshing finish. Great on its own this Pinot Gris is incredibly versatile with a variety of food, our favourites being chilled furry peach and red curry mussels.

Vineyard
Fruit for this wine was selected from mature vineyards in the North Island that consistently produce outstanding Pinot Gris grapes. The 2021 vintage has delivered exceptional quality with low yields and a temperate dry growing season producing clean ripe fruit with great flavor intensity.

Winemaking
The focus in the winery is to capture the pure fruit flavours that come in from the vineyard. The grapes were harvested at optimum ripeness then gently pressed and the juice fermented at cool temperatures with selected yeasts to enhance aromatic potential. After ferment the wine rested on lees to enhance mouthfeel before blending and preparation for early bottling.

Nga Waka was established in Martinborough in 1988 and is a family-owned winegrower producing small volumes of fine Martinborough wine from estate-grown grapes.

The Home Block Chardonnay is Nga Waka's flagship white wine. It is 100% barrel fermented and goes through 100% malolactic fermentation, remaining in barrel for 12 months with lees stirring monthly.

The wine is a pale gold colour and is rich and complex with deep, intense spicy and mineral flavours underpinned by tight-grained French oak, barrel fermentation and the malolactic component.

Bold, powerful, creamy Chardonnay with bright deep citrusy flavours. This wine is made 100% from the Om Santi Vineyard in Martinborough, which is in conversion to organic certification with BioGro NZ.

All grapes are handpicked, whole bunch pressed with a portion to oak barrels and a portion to stainless steel tanks. The tank portion is cold settled over night and then racked to French oak where fermentation is with vineyard yeasts and the occasional stirring to add texture and complexity to the wine. 

The wine gains weight, smoothness, spicy notes and texture from 12 months in oak. It is bottled unfiltered to provide a close reflection of site and season.

Luna winemaker Joel Watson is a devoted fan of Martinborough Syrah but is also candid about how tricky it can be to grow in this dry North Island wine region. His latest is a great example of cool climate Syrah with spicy black pepper aromas leading into a velvet smooth, highly structured wine with a full body and lingering finish thanks to its refreshing acidity. 

The Luna Syrah is made from grapes grown on the winery's Blue Rock Vineyard, which was planted south of Martinborough township in 1997 on a steep north facing slope. The sun shines all day here, providing evening ripening conditions for this late ripening grape variety but the wind also brings its influence to bear, making high crops a marginal prospect in this relatively cool climate. 

This is a stunning wine with huge complexity of clove and peppery spice coupled with dark chocolate and black fruit flavours. What's not to love in this wine. 

This Pinot Noir is from block with clay soil, which is planted in 2003. This wine shows full of charming red to dark fruits. A very charming wine to go with food.

Elegant and refined with a backbone of pristine fruit and balanced acidity, this finely concentrated Chardonnay has a lovely freshness and finesse and will become more complex as it evolves over time. It is drinking well now, and will develop beautifully over 5-7 years.

VINEYARDS
Old vine Mendoza Chardonnay was sourced from two sites in Hawke’s Bay.
The Mangatahi site is inland and elevated and later ripening, while Bridge Pa
ripens Chardonnay beautifully with their red metal soils.
Low yielding vines, open canopy management, managed irrigation and Sustainable
Winegrowing NZ farmed were common to both sites. The Mendoza clone with their
typical hen and chicken bunches produced fruit of great intensity and balance,
and structured acidity. This Chardonnay was hand harvested and cooled overnight.

WINEMAKING
The cooled bunches were hand sorted then whole bunched pressed. The majority of
juice was cold settled then racked to barrel. Fermentation was in new and seasoned
French oak, with selected cultured yeast and indigenous yeast, for added complexity.
A combination of 500L puncheons and 225L barriques were employed. Lees stirring
post fermentation was regular and malolactic fermentation was completed in barrel.
The Chardonnay matured in barrel for 9 months before blending and bottling.

TASTING NOTE
An elegant Chardonnay which focuses on the beautiful structure so evident in this
grape variety. Pristine fruit and balanced acidity are the backbone, enhanced with
seamless texture and mouthfeel. Citrus notes, particularly grapefruit pith abound, gracefully supported by sweet French oak.

Radburnd Cellars 

This wine is a labour of love and was made from hand picked grapes grown on the organically certified Ashmore Vineyard in Fairhall, Marlborough. A combination of spontaneous yeast and inoculated ferments (50/50) were taken to 12.5% ABV and residual sugar of 19.5 grams per litre, which makes this wine medium dry in style. It tastes like lemon zest and fresh ripe Granny Smith apples on speed… a gorgeous refreshing, full bodied Marlborough white wine made from one of the greatest grapes on Earth. 

A must try. 

Churton Estate's Natural State Pied de Cuve is made by second generation winemakers, Ben and Jack Weaver, who use grapes from the Loin Vineyard, which is family owned and farmed using biodynamic principles. This Sauvignon Blanc was whole bunch pressed into old oak puncheons and fermented with wild yeasts which were cultured from the vineyard. It was aged for a year on yeast lees and bottled without fining or filtration, so it is vegan friendly. A small addition of SO2 was added at bottling to retain freshness. 

Churton Estate 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. He and his wife Mandy Weaver then moved to New Zealand and set about creating one of this country's most focussed small wineries; a brand that does live 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 the grapes are hand picked and natural yeasts ferment the vast majority of wines they make. These qualitative decisions impact every step of their winemaking in a positive fashion, providing 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.

Beautiful bright black cherries are captured in a structured full bodied Pinot Noir with delicacy and light notes of earth, spice and summer berries. This is the best Whitehaven Pinot Noir yet, made mostly from grapes grown in Marlborough's Southern Valley sub-region.  A stunner and incredibly good value for money. 

This wine drinks beautifully now (in 2024) and will certainly age well for at least five years. 

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.

Cloudy Bay Chardonnay is a savoury and complex wine with bright aromatics and a powerful palate. Notes of citrus rind and stone fruit take the lead in this wine, backed up by nuttiness, excellent minerality and a hint of spice.

Appealingly aromatic, this Pinot Noir reveals notes of Morello cherry and bramble ont he nose. On the palate - fine, silky tannins and juicy acidity provide an elegant structure, with complexity coming from gentle toast and woodsmoke characters.

Maori Point Pinot Noir is a full bodied expression of the hero red grape of Central Otago and named after a bend on the Mata-Au (also known as the Clutha River) where Māori prospectors panned for gold in the 1860s.

The wine brand is owned by two families who grow the grapes and employ experienced winemakers in the region to produce their wines. The philosophy of the owners is to produce high quality wines made from hand picked grapes from vineyard sites with low yields, using wild yeast fermentations, minimal sulphur additions and using sustainable practices as much as possible. This is their quest and the wines are elegant renditions of Otago's edgy climate with its hot summer days and cool seasons on both sides of ripening.