Riverby Estate Marlborough Noble Riesling 2014 (5 stars) $34

August 15, 2018By Yvonne

Fresh, frisky and overflowing with flavour. This Blue Gold and Top 100 winner at the Sydney International Wine Competition is an absolute firecracker of a dessert wine. Sweet and indulgent, yet super-tangy and energizing, it has candyfloss and toffee aromas, alongside caramelised mango and pineapple pluckiness on the palate. Gorgeous. Email: kevin@riverbyestate.com to buy.

Riverby Estate Marlborough Noble Riesling 2013 (5 stars) $34

August 15, 2018By Yvonne

It’s easy to see how this wine scooped a Gold medal at the NZ International Wine Show, (New Zealand’s biggest annual wine show) because it is so irresistibly unctuous and toffee-centric. Carrying concentrated mandarin and caramelized apricot and gorgeous honeyed flavours. Email: kevin@riverbyestate.com to buy  

Riverby Estate Marlborough Noble Riesling 2012 (5 stars) $34

August 15, 2018By Yvonne

This citrus-stacked Trophy winner at the 2013 Air NZ Awards is, six years down the track, still carrying gorgeous acidity, caramelized tropical fruit, hints of honey and succulent textures. It’s an intensely delicious sweet treat that’s aging gracefully and exotically. Email: kevin@riverbyestate.com to buy

Massena The Surly Muse Barossa Valley Viognier Marsanne 2017 $41.90 (5 stars)

August 14, 2018By Yvonne

If your muse is all ‘treat em mean, keep em keen’ then they’d best stay surly because this wine is ridiculously grin-inducing. The winemaking team at Massena are mad as cut snakes when it comes to creating crazy-good blends and this South Australian version of Rhone-style classic just explodes with happiness. Yellow-diamond in the glass, … Read More

Manincor Réserve della Contessa Terlano 2016 $40 (5 stars)

August 14, 2018By Yvonne

Imported by Oh So Pretty wines, here’s a beautifully dry and delicious blend of 60% pinot blanc, 30% chardonnay combined with 10% sauvignon blanc sourced mainly from Manincor’s vineyards in Terlan, with a teensy splash of fruit from Kaltern. Both of these areas are in Südtirol, Northern Italy, and it’s like you can taste the … Read More

Yvonne Lorkin wine column for week beginning August 11 2018

August 13, 2018By Yvonne

Here in kiwiland for the last 40-something years we’ve been creating a wine signature centred around single varietal purity. Put bluntly, we like our wine to be ‘just’ sauvignon blanc, ‘just’ riesling, ‘just’ chardonnay. It’s means those wines are easy to describe, they’re not complicated, you know what you’re getting in the bottle and there’s … Read More

Château Puygueraud Francs – Côtes de Bordeaux 2015 $39.99

August 13, 2018By Yvonne

Great Bordeaux for under fifty bucks? It can be done and this blend of 80% merlot, 15% cabernet franc and 5% malbec proves it. Pour it into a large glass and swirl it vigourously or decant it if you can. That’ll inject a whoomph of oxygen into the wine, accelerating the aromatics and plumping out … Read More

Paltrinieri Radice Lambrusco Di Sorbara NV $17.70

August 13, 2018By Yvonne

I can totally see why Wine Enthusiast magazine called this “one of the best Lambrusco’s out there” and chose it as one of their Top 10 wines for 2017. Ruby-coloured, spritzy and beautifully dry, it’s wine with a whiff of wild strawberry and grapefruit zest and a mouthfeel replete with racy, bracing acidity and texture. … Read More

Arc du Rhone Chateauneuf-du-Pape 2013 $46

August 12, 2018By Yvonne

There’s a group of villages in the Rhone that when joined together look like an arc – and this wine comes from the most famous cru at the southern tip of that arc, the Chateauneuf-du-Pape. Three grapes, grenache noir, syrah and carignan have created an earthy, savoury, tobacco and dark fruited style that, seven years … Read More

Yvonne Lorkin Canvas Column for Sat 11 Aug 2018

August 12, 2018By Yvonne

Arc du Rhone Chateauneuf-du-Pape 2013 $46 There’s a group of villages in the Rhone that when joined together look like an arc – and this wine comes from the most famous cru at the southern tip of that arc, the Chateauneuf-du-Pape. Three grapes, grenache noir, syrah and carignan have created an earthy, savoury, tobacco and … Read More