Monowai Hawke’s Bay Merlot 2020 $24.99 Softly spiced, perfumed with plum, light liquorice and a dusting of cocoa, it’s a velvety-smooth, refreshingly ripe style of merlot from the Matapiro region west of Hastings. Slinky and slightly smoky, it’s a satisfyingly juicy sip. Monowai
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Monowai Upper Reaches Hawke’s Bay Chardonnay 2020
Monowai Upper Reaches Hawke’s Bay Chardonnay 2020 $35 Aromas of baked peach, cashew butter and creme caramel collide with slightly scorched toast, a lick of grapefruit, pineapple and layers of butterscotch complexity. It’s a refreshingly silky thing to sip, with nicely balanced acidity and alcohol and a long, creamy, classic finish. Round, ripe and soothing … Read More
Pikes The Merle Clare Valley Riesling 2018
Pikes The Merle Clare Valley Riesling 2018 $39.99 Wow – this iconic South Australian riesling is whipcrack dry, snappy, crunchy and loaded with lime on the nose and palate. Laced with green apple and masses of crushed shell minerality, it’s a style that Pikes have perfected to the point that this is now one of … Read More
Monowai Upper Reaches Hawke’s Bay Merlot 2020
Monowai Upper Reaches Hawke’s Bay Merlot 2020 $26 Well well well. Straight out the gate, I’m calling this the best merlot I’ve ever tasted from Hawke’s Bay’s Matapiro subregion. Clearly the grape gods were shining down on husband and wife winegrowing team Emma Lowe and Marcelo Nunez in 2020, because those vines have produced a … Read More
Koerner Clare Valley The Clare 2020
Koerner Clare Valley The Clare 2020 $48 Hands up if you’ve ever tasted a blend of 51% cabernet sauvignon, 15% cabernet franc, 12% malbec, 12% grenache, 9% carignan and 1% sciacarello. No? Me neither. From the evil genius brothers, Damon and Jono Koerner (winners of the 2019 Young Gun of Wine award) comes this sultry, … Read More
Nivarius Rioja Tempranillo Blanco 2019
Nivarius Rioja Tempranillo Blanco 2019 $22.99 Nivarius is the only winery in the Rioja that focuses on white wines crafted from indigenous varieties and that’s a great thing because I sure as heck haven’t tasted much in the way of tempranillo blanco and this is really exciting. Loaded with green apple, quartzy minerality, white pepper … Read More
Chard Farm River Run Central Otago Pinot Noir 2019
Chard Farm River Run Central Otago Pinot Noir 2019 $34 The Hay family’s River Run vineyards which supply the fruit for this wine are located in Gibbston Valley and in the Cromwell Basin, and in 2019 they sure as heck produced incredibly smart, incredibly pure grapes for this glorious thing. Glossy and gorgeous in the … Read More
Martin Codax Mara Martin Monterrei DO Godello 2019
Martin Codax Mara Martin Monterrei DO Godello 2019 $25 How cool is the name ‘Codax’? It’s like something an evil villain in one of the Die Hard movies would be called. Or the name of a secret agent who also happens to be a highly intelligent German shepherd, deep undercover as the household pet of … Read More
Rapaura Springs Rohe Dillons Point Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc 2021
Rapaura Springs Rohe Dillons Point Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc 2021 $27.90 This bottle should carry a ‘Wear a Helmet’ warning because by jingoes, the second you unclick the cap and pour this wine into your glass, a passionfruit-pumped roundhouse kick of Kill Bill proportions will collide with your face. Big call, but I think this could … Read More
Greywacke Marlborough Wild Sauvignon 2018
Greywacke Marlborough Wild Sauvignon 2018 $39 If you’d like to sip more sauvignon, but don’t want to deal with all that grassiness and squinty acidity, then this is for you. Crafted by winemaking legend Kevin Judd, the ‘wild’ has an extra injection of toasty, slightly smoky, funky notes from fermentation with indigenous, or ‘wild’ yeasts … Read More