Peacock Sky Vineyard – Waiheke Island

Peacock Sky Vineyard, Waiheke Island, New Zealand
Many butterflies migrate over long distances, and butterflies also symbolize rebirth into a new life. Peacock Sky Vineyard owners Connie and Rob migrated thousands of miles to start their new life in the centre of Waiheke Island.

This picturesque vineyard is located high above the golden sands of Onetangi with commanding views across the beautiful Hauraki Gulf to Auckland City. Located in the centre of Waiheke Island with views across the Hauraki Gulf to Auckland, on New Zealand’s North Island, the vines are surrounded by lush native bush overlooking the sparkling blue waters of the Pacific Ocean. The owners share their verdant home with a flock of wild peacocks from which the vineyard takes its name.

The Tasting Room is open to the public to sample their fine wines, each accompanied by a complimentary food pairing. Stay for a lunch platter and sit inside among their eclectic selection of antiques and wine related products, or relax outside at picnic tables overlooking the vineyard.

Enjoy their delightful nature trail that runs through peaceful native bush between the vineyard and their main facilities. Stroll along the trail and cross the small wooden bridge over one of the streams feeding the Cascades Waterfalls.

Stay with them at Cody’s Cottage, a modern two bedroom chalet with full kitchen with views across the vineyard and surrounding pasture, and sea views across the Hauraki Gulf towards Auckland, or at Maybelline’s Manor, a luxurious one bedroom apartment overlooking the vineyard. Peacock Sky can also host weddings in the vineyard or perhaps a business meeting or corporate retreat.

There’s a lot to experience at Peacock Sky Vineyard – to find out more visit their Website, like their Facebook Page or follow them on Twitter.

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NZ School of Wines & Spirits – Website of the Week

New Zealand School of Wines and Spirits

The New Zealand School of Wines and Spirits, NZSWS, was established by Jane Skilton MW to provide the Wine and Spirit Education Trust® (WSET) courses to New Zealand. The WSET offers the highest standard of wine education in the world offer with four awards:

WSET Level 1 Foundation Certificate
WSET Level 2 Intermediate Certificate
WSET Level 3 Advanced Certificate
WSET Level 4 Diploma Course

Jane Skilton MW, Tutor Originally from the UK, Jane studied for her WSET® Diploma examination in London and passed the final examination in 1988, gaining both the Frescobaldi and Cognac scholarships. Jane is the only female Master of Wine based in New Zealand. She publishes an online wine magazine, The Independent Wine Monthly, as well as contributing to a number of wine publications. She is a senior wine judge both internationally and in NZ, and co-ordinates the MW Education Seminar, held in Adelaide, each November.

Fiona Paul AIWS, Tutor is Associate of the Institute of Wines and Spirits, Fiona has 16 years experience in the wines and spirits industry. She worked in the UK for a major wine importer based in Scotland, and in NZ where she represented a number of domestic wineries herself. Before that Fiona worked in New Zealand for a wine distributor selling New Zealand and international wines, and managed a fine wine retail shop. Fiona has first hand experience of vineyards in France, Spain, NZ and Australia. In 2007 she passed her WSET Level 4 Diploma examination with Merit, and is currently enrolled on the Master of Wine programme, hoping to become a Master of Wine some time in the not too distant future.

If you are interested in applying for, working towards and achieving an internationally recognized professional qualification then visit NZSWS to find out more.

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Locharburn Vineyard and Wines

Locharburn Vineyard and Wines

“Finely blended Central Otago wines, using the highest quality fruit grown in their own vineyard.”

Locharburn is a Central Otago venture realising the dream of owners Chris and Jenny Hill. For years, owning a vineyard was an unattainable dream Chris and Jenny would joke about with friends… until they succeeded in making it a reality late in 2004.

Named for the Locharburn stream which the vines and their home overlook, the 14ha sustainability accredited vineyard is planted on north-easterly facing terraces near the top of Lake Dunstan in Cromwell Basin. It is surrounded by panoramic alpine ranges. Towering directly behind the vineyard is Mount Pisa, to the east are the Dunstan ranges, and in the distance across the Upper Clutha River plateau you can see the beautiful St Bathans Mountains.

The unique microclimate of the terraces, Central Otago’s famed hot summers and long autumns let the grapes ripen slowly, yielding high-quality fruit with intense, complex flavours. Locharburn produce Pinot Noir, Pinot Gris, Riesling, Sauvignon Blanc and Chardonnay, the wines all crafted from grapes grown on this fully sustainable, single vineyard by award winning winemaker Carol Bunn.

These characterful wines express the unique microclimate of the Locharburn vineyard, along with the passion and hands-on care that go into their making. To find out more about Locharburn Vineyards and Wines and purchase their wine online, visit their Website like their Facebook Page or follow Jenny on Twitter.

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Greystone Late Harvest Riesling 2009

Greystone Riesling 2009
Greystone Riesling 2009

Seeing as it’s The Summer of Riesling I thought what a better way to end the day but with a lovely bottle of the Greystone Late Harvest Riesling 2009 from the Waipara region. I looked at the 2011 Greystone Feather Star Riesling but opted to leave that just a little longer.

The 2009 Late Harvest was bright yellow-golden hues and quite viscous in the glass, floral in the nose with a little beeswax? sweet but not cloying on the palate even though the residual sugar is 102g/l. There’s lemon / lime acidity still evident though softened and honey & tropical fruit – a persistent juicy finish.

I like but am not a huge fan of late-harvest or sticky rieslings preferring them “dry and kero infused!” but this has a nice balance of fruit acid and sweetness which makes it a really well made wine and i enjoyed it a lot. I note on the Greystone website that this hasn’t been made since 2009 or is no longer available.

Alcohol: 9.4 % RRP: about NZ$25 (availability unknown): 91/100 Points

http://www.greystonewines.co.nz/

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Moncellier 2011 Sauvignon Blanc & Pinot Gris

savblanc

Opened a bottle of the Moncellier Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc 2011 for a taste and what a lovely wine – All the fruit for this was sourced from and grown sustainably in the Awatere Valley which is currently producing some of the best Sauvignon Blanc coming out of the Marlborough region.

This wine was bright green-gold in the glass with fresh grassy and tropical notes in the nose – on first taste there was an initial sweetness on the front palate, green pea / asparagus coming in later, then a burst of fresh citrus and mineral elements, leading into a long succulent mouthwatering finish. Glenys and I both thought this a quite an elegant savvy with great balance and perhaps would soften and integrate with a little more aging.
Alcohol: 13% Residual Sugar: 2.3gms – 87.5 /100

pinotgris

The next wine from Moncellier is their 2011 Pinot Gris also from Marlborough but grown meticulously by the Ellin family in the Wairau Valley and delivered to the winery in fantastic condition thus contributing to a very fine wine indeed.

In the glass bright, pale almost onion-skin colour, in the nose there was stone fruit, peaches and a sweet honey note, while on the palate again stone fruit, pears matched with lively acidity – a medium weight, mouth filling wine with ripe fruit, great structure and a very persistent finish.
Alcohol: 13.5% Residual Sugar: 5.1gms – 88/100

Moncellier also produce a Central Otago Pinot Noir 2008 which I have yet to taste and review.
To find out more about these wines and about Moncellier visit their website.

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EIT Hawkes Bay Grapegrowing & Winemaking Course

Here’s a great little video created by EIT specifically to introduce their Wine and Viticulture courses.
http://www.eit.ac.nz/areas-of-study/grapegrowing-and-winemaking/

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Summer of Riesling Poll

As it’s the Summer of Riesling we thought it might be interesting to see which wine regions that your favourite Riesling comes from – is it up North, down South or somewhere in the middle?

Take part in our Facebook Poll and at the end of the Summer of Riesling I’ll post the results to everyone.

CLICK HERE TO PARTCIPATE

More about Summer of Riesling EventNZ SUMMER OF RIESLING

The Summer of Riesling is a worldwide movement that encourages the consumption, discussion and enjoyment of Riesling.

From 12th January 2012 New Zealand will be launched head first into its very first Summer of Riesling. When it resurfaces we hope everyone will find themselves in a whirlpool of Riesling love. Winemaker dinners, tastings and wine lists evangelizing the virtues of the truly noble grape

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Ataahua Wines – NZ Wine Website of the Week

Ataahua Wines - Making delicious Wines in Waipara, New Zealand

The beautiful Waipara Valley in North Canterbury is home to Ataahua Wines. Nestled between traditional pastoral and cropping based farms, adjoining vineyards and the Waipara Domain lies Ataahua’s vineyards.

The Maori translation of Ataahua is ‘beautiful, picturesque, a place of beauty’ – so appropriate to the valley, the vineyard and the wines alike. A major part of Ataahua’s philosophy for growing grapes then carefully making that fruit into wine is to translate and express the beauty of the vineyard and area into wines that people can relate to and absolutely enjoy.Sauvignon Blanc and Gewurztraminer

First planted in the early 1980’s, the vineyard was originally part of Waipara Springs and the Hutt Creek Vineyards – among some of the earliest vineyards planted in the valley. Sheltered from the cooling easterly sea breezes by a range of limestone hills, the Waipara Valley enjoys the long warm dry summers that are ideal for wine growing.

Purchased in 1995 by Andrew Grant and Stephanie Henderson-Grant, the now named Ataahua vineyard is home to the Grant family. Following many years of involvement in the wine industry – including winemaking, wine sales and marketing, and business management – Andrew and Stephanie decided to follow a dream and began producing handcrafted wine from their own vineyard.

2008 heralded the first vintage of Ataahua Wine and now they produce a range of delicious wines from the Riesling, Gewurztraminer, Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Merlot varieties and also Ataahua Olive Oil. To find out more about Ataahua Wines visit their Website or like their Facebook page.

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What we’ve been up to since September 2011

Since starting this project / website we have made a lot of progress in terms of content, visitors and social interaction promoting New Zealand Wine to the world. Here are a few stats for you.

  • Started in 2002 as a hobby website called NZ Wine Links
  • In late 2009 we launched The New Zealand Wine Directory Online
  • We relaunched our new-look New Zealand Wine Directory in September 2011 on the WordPress Platform.
  • We now have 1,250 + Links to New Zealand Wine Related Websites and businesses.
  • Since September we have had over 5 GB of traffic.
  • Wine lovers have made 22,396 visits to the website.
  • And viewed over 102,723 pages.
  • There’s been 348,300 hits on the site since September.
  • We have 586 wine lovers who like us on Facebook.
  • We like over 500 NZ Wine Pages on Facebook
  • And 1,367 Peeps now follow us on Twitter.
  • We’ve tweeted 6,226 Tweets about New Zealand Wine.
  • We now have 500 Kiwi Tweeters in our NZ Wine Tweeters list.
  • We have an Alexa ranking of 444,301 and are consistently in the top 1,000 New Zealand web sites visited each month.
  • Hubspot’s Marketing Grader gives us a 78/100 and Tweet Grader a 98.5/100.
  • And finally wine lovers have visited from over 60 different countries – NZ, USA, UK, Australia, Germany, India, South Africa, many European and Scandinavian countries and more recently from many parts of Asia.

If you love New Zealand Wine and think our Directory is a useful and valuable resource please share this   with all your wine friends. Cheers! JB

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