Commercial description.

Our "Home Block" vineyard, planted over 3 decades ago, is the sole source of this 2022 Forrest Malbec, revealing a captivating mix of boysenberry, chocolate, and coffee notes with a hearty and intense body.

Albariño is a classic Galician white grape variety from north western Spain, which thrives in New Zealand and tastes of fabulous aromatic lemon zest with green olive and freshly picked apple aromas. Forrest Estate winemaker Beth Forrest first encountered it in Spain and was smitten immediately. This led to Albarino being brought into New Zealand by Riversun Nurseries in Gisborne and, eventually, to growing in Marlborough where Beth and her famous winemaking father, John, Forrest, both love it and produce this fabulous dry white wine.

This wine shows all the classical Albariño elements with a New Zealand touch of vibrant acidity, white peach, pear, apricots and quince, with an orange zest undertone.

Amaranta is a cru wine obtained from Abruzzo's most important red grape, the Montepulciano D'Abruzzo. This is a deep red wine with an intense perfume of red fruit and complex spice characters. The palate is well structured, complex and elegant, with a long, rich finish. 

Timorasso is often called the ?white Barolo? and this grape produces a white wine with great potential for aging.

The soil in the Tortona area is sandy clay and the vineyard aspect is South, South west at about 250-450m. the vines are trained to Guyot with ten buds per plant at 4.500 vines per hectare.  All grapes are handpicked around the end of September followed by 6 hours of cryo-maceration. Fermentation is in temperature-controlled stainless steel tanks with followed by 6 months on fine lees.

The end result is a super complex minerally driven wine, full-bodied on the palate with fresh citrus and tropical fruit notes leading to a mineral finish.

San Marzano Edda Bianco Salento IGP 2021

Area: Puglia/ Apulia

Edda (?she? in Salento dialect) is the feminine and sensual soul of San Marzano. It is a complex white wine, full of Mediterranean notes. Noticeable acidity intertwined with an enveloping and elegant warmth, savoury and mineral notes on the palate. The Chardonnay grapes give the wine finesse and longevity, together with different varieties indigenous to Puglia, that year after year compete to complement the blend.

Grapes: Mainly Chardonnay with white native grapes

Appellation: Salento IGP

Vine training: Guyot Vines per ha: 4.500

Production area: San Marzano (TA), Salento, Puglia. The area is about 100 m above sea level and benefits from great diurnal temperature variations

Vinification: Destemming of the grapes and cryomaceration for a few hours, followed by a soft pressing of the marc and cold settling. Alcoholic fermentation in French oak barrels

Ageing: In French oak barrels for 4 months on the yeasts with a weekly b?tonnage

Tasting notes: Straw yellow with goldish reflections; mellow floral notes, peach and delicate vanilla hints pervade the nose. Generous in its elegance, fresh, delicate and mineral

Best served with: Starters, fish first courses and cheese Serving temperature: 12-14?C

Exceptional dry, flinty and complex Sauvignon Blanc made with grapes grown in the Awatere Valley, the cooler climate area in this terraced valley, south of Blenheim. 

This wine is made from 100% Awatere grapes, which provides it with a flinty, fresh style where blackcurrant leaf, tomato leaf and green herbal flavours are all supported by super refreshing acidity and a long finish.

This is a consistently outstanding Sauvignon Blanc, which highlights another string to Marlborough's white wine bow.

The story of Astrolabe

Diversity, history and family ownership are among the reasons to try the outstanding range of wines from Astrolabe, which was founded in 1996 in Marlborough by winemaker Simon Waghorn and his partner in life and wine, Jane. 

Simon has forged a reputation for being one of New Zealand's most respected producers of aromatic white wines after winning an almost embarrassingly long string of awards for his Sauvignon Blancs. He has also forged a name for adventurously diverse winemaking - he produces dry flinty whites from the most southern vineyard in Marlborough at Kekerengu on the coast about an hour's drive south of Blenheim. He is the only winemaker to produce wines from here. 

He is also one of the few in this country to make Albarino, Chenin Blanc and a consistently outstanding range of wines from the organically certified hillside sloping site that is the Wrekin Vineyard in Marlborough. 

The winery remains family owned and is now run by two generations, including Simon and Jane as well as their adult daughters. 

This English ale was born mature. Because even when it was new, it was Old 95. Full-bodied, with delicious toffee malt sweetness, and a lingering balanced bitterness, it's a recipe that gives new beers a run for their money.

So, sit down in your favourite old chair, put on your favourite old slippers, and pour your favourite Old 95.

6.7% ABV

Just because you don't want a beer, it doesn't mean you don't want a beer. So, we brewed you a beer. Inspired by the big bold flavours of Bird Dog IPA, but without the bite. Little Bird is an alcohol-free* IPA, with a deliciously-puritanical, true expression of the hop flavour. It's so tasty, you wont even realise you're not drinking. Until the morning, of course 

<0.05%

Emerson's - One for the hopheads, Bird Dog is full of intense flavours courtesy of American hops to deliver a smooth, resiny beer. Tropical fruit dominates the flavour with subtle fresh squeezed orange with a hint of pine thrown in. Given the name, the astute drinker will note a gratifying absence of any avian or canine aftertaste.

7.0% ABV.

42 Below is distilled three times from non-genetically engineered wheat. After that, natural spring water (whose source hails from an extinct volcanic region) is used as a wash before a final distillation and a trip through 35 different filters. The result is a smooth vodka free of the majority of impurities.

Creating positive change in the New Zealand brewing industry. The Good Fight, a series of collaborative brews, with all profits going towards building educational resources for New Zealand breweries. For this year's Good Fight brew, we have teamed up with our friends at 8 Wired. We have brewed a hazy NZ hopped IPA featuring Moutere, Riwaka and late harvest Nelson Sauvin, fermented with Tropicale yeast strain. This hop combo gives aromas of orange, passionfruit, nectarine with a hint of dankness for good measure. We played with the malt bill, using a pinch of darker malts to give the beer a 'sundown hue'.

6.4%

Scoundrels and Rogues - Sometimes, bigger is better.  Made by the most irrepressible Scoundrels and Rogues in North Canterbury, this Pear cider was made from the contents of only a few pear trees, fermented in barrels, and then promptly forgotten about for six months.  It gives new meaning to the term rustic, as it's made in a very traditional French farmhouse style, with a strong pear character.  You may love it, you may hate it, but i'm not sure i'm too bothered either way.

This Pear cider is rustic and funky, but you'll get over it.

Beer judge and journalist, Martin Bridges said "Roasted Apple was my 'beer' of the day on Friday" at Beervana 2023. 5.7% abv

North End's interpretation of a traditional Gose combining mild lactic tartness , coriander spicing and a malt accenting salt character. 

5% ABV.

The land has bones , it has a structure , a nature , a spirit and perhaps most importantly it has a flavour. In the Wallonia region of Belgium brewers continue a tradition of brewing farmhouse ales with the locally grown barley and yeast strains developed over generations. Bones of the Land is our take on these classic farmhouse ales combining malted barley from the Rangitikei with a smack of herbal hop and our own complex farmhouse ale yeast. The result is the produce of our corner of the world, the taste of here, the bones of our land.

6.5% ABV.