Wine times

Cask wines are making a comeback: in reality they never really went away.

A passion for Riesling shone in this lineup, through the lens of three Central producers and one from Waipara.

Summer! The barbecue comes out of hibernation and while warmer days trend towards white wines, there is a wonderful synergy between food fresh off the barbecue and Australian shiraz.

I think this happens to me every year: one minute it’s early spring, the next Christmas feels like it’s knocking on the door.

Tasting through this selection of pinot gris, I found myself thinking back to the early 2000s when I was involved with a wine business that worked with local restaurants on their wine lists.

The 22nd annual New World Wine Awards competition took place in Hawke’s Bay at the beginning of August.

A little while back I greatly enjoyed tasting my way through a raft of Central Otago chardonnays. Now we head to Waipara, Marlborough and Hawke’s Bay.

Depending on where you shop, there’s no doubt that there are a vast array of price points out there for Central Pinot Noir.

I’ve been in the midst of a veritable deluge of pinot noirs recently, which is actually quite a nice place to be.

For the curious, there are a handful of wine styles that sit outside the mainstream, offering flavour profiles and textures distinct from the classic wines we have all come to know.

Congratulations to Nina Downer of Felton Road Wines, who has won the NZ Young Viticulturist of the Year competition, bringing the crown back to Central!

Somewhat of a mixed assortment for your delectation today, as much by expediency as by design.

A customer walks into a wine shop ... nope; not the start of a joke but a question asked from time to time is whether there are older vintages available?

I always like to acknowledge the results of the Central Otago legs of the Young Viticulturist & Winemaker competitions in these pages.

I do go on about chardonnay having sometimes been cast as an unsung hero in the firmament of Central Otago wine.

Gisborne - Tairāwhiti - ‘‘First to see the light’’, as the marketing tagline says, making Gisborne the first city on the mainland to see the sunrise each day.