JB Reviews New Zealand Wines

Have your New Zealand wines promoted on The New Zealand Wine Directory Blog and shared with our many 1,000s of visitors, fans and followers.

I (JB) review all wines submitted, honestly and objectively and post my thoughts on our blog, including links to your Website / Facebook / Twitter in each review and then promote via our social media channels on Facebook and Twitter too.

I spend many $$$$ on NZ wine during the year but do not charge a fee for my reviews – only one bottle of each wine submitted is required but please provide information about the viticultural approach taken, harvesting, wine-making techniques used or any other related information. (alternatively I will source that from your websites.)

Check out my previous wine reviews HERE.

Please courier your samples to me at:

John Bartlett
The New Zealand Wine Directory
4A Manson Street
Redwoodtown, Blenheim
Marlborough

About JB and My Wine Reviews

Many years ago I was a member of the Pegasus Amateur Wine Making Club in Christchurch NZ – over a 10 year period I made a wide range of wines out of all sorts of fruit (and other things) and had a great deal of success with the likes of my Dry Apricot, Sparking Kiwi fruit and Feijoa bubbles and later on moved from fruit to actual grape based wines.

I started with Albany Surprise, Black Hamburg and an unknown grape variety brought into New Zealand by my parent’s Croation neighbours – they made gallons of a rich dark sweet wine every year as they drank it with every meal.

The Wine club quite often would assist with local winemaker’s harvests and we would get a bucket or two of grapes to take home and carefully make into our own wine – Muller Thurgau and Chardonnay from St Helena, sometimes we would be able to get juice from Giesens, Muller and Riesling.

The best I ever made was from a trial plot of Pinot Noir at St Helena – Danny Schuster was growing some there and I managed to get enough grapes to make a one gallon jar full – couple of oak staves, fermented in plastic bucket, racked into a jar, settled, filtered and then bottled – drank one bottle each year for 6 years… and it wasn’t too bad either.

As I started to taste more and more New Zealand wines in the late 80′s and into the 90′s I really started to see that others made much better wines than I could ever achieve and after a couple of catastrophic failures (2 glass 5Gal Carboys of infected Elderberry) I gradually gave up on that hobby for developed my new passion for New Zealand Wine.

Since then I have been rating all the wines that Glenys and I have purchased,  consumed, tasted and enjoyed at home, wine events, wine clubs and festivals. I was until moving to Marlborough a member of Cellarmasters, VP of The New Brighton Wine Club, attend tastings at Vino Fino, Liquor King and other wine shops in Christchurch, and at the cellar door when visiting the wine regions of New Zealand.

The New Zealand Wine Directory connects people with New Zealand’s Wines online and the #nzwine community is rapidly using social networks to share, discuss and enjoy those fine wines produced by New Zealand’s wineries and vineyards.

Love to hear from you and be privileged enough to taste, review and promote your New Zealand Wines for you.

Cheers!

JB