If dark and broody with loads of black cherry and dried herb aromas sounds like a wine you'd love to drink, buy this beautiful Pinot Noir from the Inlet Vineyard in Bannockburn, Central Otago. 

This 5.25 hectare site is situated 225 to 245 metres above sea level where the grapes' growing season is extended thanks to the elevation, which provides cool nights as a foil to the hot days here. 

Flavours of structured dark fruit combine with firm tannins and a long life ahead.

The wine was aged in French oak and bottled unfined.

Located on the north facing slopes of the Brancott Valley, Clayvin Vineyard takes its unique name from the clay based soil profile that lies beneath the vineyard. The complex clay profile varies across the vineyard, allowing a number of different varieties to be grown, including Pinot Noir and Chardonnay.

The clay soil gives our Clayvin Pinot Noirs richness and generosity and an immediately appealing soft texture.

High density planting allows for very low yields per vine. Low yielding vines tend to produce wines of great concentration and richness.

This vineyard consistently produces grapes of outstanding quality.

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.

100% hand-picked Chardonnay, crushed and pressed into old Burgundian French oak barrels for wild yeast fermentation until dry. The wine was matured in barrel for 14-16 months during which time it underwent full malolactic fermentation.

This is a complex Chardonnay with multiple layers of ripe fruit and richness, along with a chalky minerality on the nose. The palate combines fruit weight and balanced acidity with a tight yet generous structure. This is followed by a long lingering pithy citrus finish with and hints of savouriness.

Vineyard Sites - Cornerstone Vineyard lies at the heart of the renowned Gimblett Gravels viticultural region, strategically positioned at the junction of Gimblett Road and State Highway 50 in Hawke’s Bay. This area is celebrated as New Zealand’s premier Bordeaux red grape-growing region, and it’s easy to see why. The vineyard’s unique terroir, composed of riverbed stones and gravels, challenges the vines, leading them to produce a limited yield of small, intensely coloured, and flavourful berries. The resulting grapes give rise to wines with rich, mouth-filling tannins and a depth of character that speaks to the harsh yet rewarding growing conditions. 

Vinification - The grapes were carefully handpicked and fermented in small, open vats. Traditional hand-plunging techniques were used to gently extract the rich flavours and colour. After fermentation, the wine underwent varying degrees of post-ferment skin contact to enhance complexity before being pressed off. The wine then proceeded to malolactic fermentation and was aged in French oak barriques, with 30% of the barrels being new, adding subtle layers of oak influence and refinement. 

Tasting Notes - Boasting an inky, deep ruby hue, this wine offers aromas of stewed red fruits, hints of raspberry jam, black cherry, black plum, and violets. Subtle light cedar and toast are so well knitted you almost miss them. On the palate, flavours of cooked red plum and hints of tobacco emerge.  The finish is long, with fruit carrying right through. An outstanding wine, perfect to drink now or age.

Rich, inky, dark plum coloured wine with intense aromas of cherry, cranberries and raspberry, complemented by an earthy herbal note. The sumptous palate offers baked rhubarb, damson plums and savoury notes, with a strong backbone of chalky fine drying tannins and focused acidity. It?s nicely integrated, complex, with excellent balance and persistent length - Simply stunning!

A skin fermented field blend using the classic combination of Viognier, Marsanne and Muscat. Picked by hand, fermented and aged on skins for 200 days, aged in the Millton cellars and bottled on the property.

This wine is rich and sensual with an adoring complexity. It is cloudy from natural sediments and soft yet drying to the taste. It smells very clearly of its origins in terms of place and fruit. An exciting, lifted nose with cardamom spice, white stonefruit and tropical muscat floral notes. Complex in structure, with a gentle phenolic tension and underlying salinity. Once opened, this wine will last, even improve, for a number of days afterwards, so take your time, savour and drink in moderation, with love and gratitude, but always remember to keep another bottle handy!

This is the first fruit from the new Dicey Syrah vines and the results are impressive.

The fruit was all destemmed and fermented with indigenous yeast and received 21 days on the skins with had daily punch downs. The wine spent 10 months in neutral oak and went through natural malolactic fermentation.

The nose is bright and expressive with boysenberry, blackcurrant and elegant violet notes leading to a palate that is supple, lithe and lightly structured. 

Muirkirk vineyard is situated on Felton Road in Bannockburn on a gentle north west sloping corner. This wine is about single site expression, a small limited parcel that shows the true characters of our vineyard within one of Central Otago’s greatest sub regions.

Our Iris Chardonnay comes from the gracious slopes of our Čuvar Terraces Vineyard in Bayview. First planted by George Fistonich in 1986 (he was yet to become Sir), this vineyard has one of the best views in the bay - looking out to the Pacific Ocean. This environment shapes the sunshine of this wine.

The forthright bouquet introduces bursts of candied tropical fruits intertwined with notes reminiscent of warm fruit crumble. Gentle oak wraps around the palate of balanced acid and ripe fruit. Nothing is too dominant — the fruit, oak, acid and flavours all sing in harmony

This new addition to the Esk Valley stable of wines is a lighter, more fragrant expression of Syrah, which represents a bit of a style departure from its siblings made from grapes grown on the Gimblett Gravels.
In this case, the wine is made from grapes grown on a 1.1 hectare vineyard at the top of The Terraces Vineyard at Bay View, just north of Napier city. The warmth of the limestone soils and the cooling sea breezes combine to ripen Syrah grapes slowly with hot days and cool nights, providing floral aromas supported by depth of dark fruit, black olive and fleshy red fruit notes. All grapes were hand picked and fermented as a mix of whole cluster bunches and destemmed fruit in a single concrete fermenter with wild yeasts. 

It’s made in small volumes and will age for up to and beyond 10 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.

Peregrine's quest for outstanding Central Otago wine begins in the three distinct sub-regions from which we draw our fruit: Bendigo, Pisa and Gibbston, where their landmark winery rises up amongst rugged rock reefs and ancient hills. In each of these locations, their commitment to organic farming and viticulture guarantees fruit of the highest quality, imparting the clearest expression of character to every vintage.