Pinot Gris

One of our biggest sellers and easy to see why with its fresh, soft, smooth body and white pear flavours. A lively, lovely off dry Pinot Gris made in a super popular style, offering good value. 

The Main Divide is the name of the Southern Alps in the South Island, which forms the backbone and divides each coast. It's also the name of a range of wines made by Pegasus Bay in North Canterbury, using 100% locally grown grapes.

The aim here is to make an Alsatian style of Pinot Gris. Grapes were picked at various stages of ripeness to create a wine with a broad flavour spectrum. All grapes were then fermented in stainless steel at cool temperatures to preserve fruit aromas. The ferment was stopped to allow the wine to retain 10 grams per litre of residual sugar, creating an off dry, medium bodied, super flavoursome style of Pinot Gris. 

The wine was matured for a short time on its yeast lees (sur lie) pre bottling. 

If you're looking for an organically certified, approachable white wine, here's a lovely off dry wine with white fleshed pear flavours and a hint of fresh lemon captured in a soft, smooth, dry white for drinking now or soon rather than for cellaring. It will hold its own for two to three years and offers good value for money.

Roaring Meg is one of Central Otago's most popular wines and is named, cheekily, after a lady of the night during the infamous gold rush days in this southern region, in the 1800s. 

Pinot Gris is the most popular and widely planted white grape in this region, although it pales in comparison to Pinot Noir, which makes up over 80% of the area's vineyards. Gris is a soft, smooth and approachable white wines, such as this lightly spicy version with a good balance of fresh southern acidity, thanks to the cool climate here. 

Here's a Pinot Gris that tastes noticeably drier than many and is all about fresh pure, white fruit flavours of pear and peach. The refreshing acidity comes from the cooler climate grapes contained in the wine, which is made from a blend of grapes grown in three sub regions of Marlborough. The cool climate Awatere Valley has 73% with the remaining 17% from the Waihopai Valley and 10% from Kekerengu on the southern coast.

Grapes were fermented at cool temperatures to preserve fruit freshness and dry flavours. 

Residual sugar is 3.8 grams, making it dry in style - and also in flavour. 

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. 

The Charles Wiffen Pinot Gris, is grown in the ?Home? Block, which surrounds the Homestead on the farm, which was built in 1882. The block is spur pruned, with a targeted yield of 9 tonnes to the hectare. The grapes are machine harvested in the cool of the morning, transported to the winery, where it is gently destemmed, pressed and clarified. The juice is then fermented with selected yeasts, with the fermentation stopped at the desired residual sugar content.

This estate grown Pinot Gris exhibits aromas of beurre bose pear, hazelnut and white lily with hints of meyer lemon and rosewater on the palate and is refreshingly textured.

RS 5.5 g/L

Hand picked grapes, indigenous yeast fermentation and time on lees all add the X factor to this dry Pinot Gris from Kumeu River Wines, which has a long standing reputation as the best winery in the region, for good reason.

The winery began life as San Marino Wines in 1944 when Croatian immigrant couple, Mick and Kat? Brajkovich, bought a small property with a vineyard on it. Their descendents now own and run Kumeu River Wines, which produces 250,000 bottles of wine annually from its owns 30 hectares of vineyards in Kumeu and from another 10 hectares, owned by local grape growers. 

We love a dry Pinot Gris and this wine ticks that box beautifully... We're sure you'll love it too.

Amisfield Winery is based in Pisa while its beautiful cellar door shop and restaurant overlook Lake Hayes, just outside of Queenstown.

This winery makes a more diverse range of whites than most in Central Otago and the Pinot Gris is a light bodied, refreshing expression of this white grape from a cool climate. Spice, fresh fruit and a long finish all make this an extremely good quality Pinot Gris.

Ripe pear, poached quince and rose petal florals are abundant in our Pinot Gris. The palate is full flavoured & textural which can be attributed to the beautifully balanced fruit at harvest combined with our unique winemaking technique. - Maude.

This is a light, dry and fresh Pinot Gris with flavours of white fruit and a lingering finish. Good value. 

This barrel fermented Pinot Gris is a great alternative to Chardonnay, which was inspired by the classical French approach to Pinot Gris, using lees stirring and partial malolactic fermentation to add texture, weight and dryness to burn. 

This wine is made from 100% Martinborough grapes, all grown on Te Muna Road, 9 kilometres east of the township on a vineyard first planted in 1999.

Winemaker Larry McKenna recommends cellaring it for up to five years - or enjoy right now. 

Greystone is one of North Canterbury's wine stars situated on the slopes of limestone rich hills in Omihi. All of the grapes that go into Greystone wines are 100% certified organic with BioGro NZ and all are estate grown. No additional fruit is purchased to supplement production, which is one of many incremental steps that go into Greystone's high quality wines.

This off dry Pinot Gris has body and richness thanks to the long dry autumn weather in North Canterbury, which allows long ripening and lovely ripe fruity flavours. 

Certified organic with BioGro NZ.

About Greystone

The Greystone wine story began in 2000 when the Thomas Family bought an old sheep farm on the Omihi hills in the Waipara Valley, North Canterbury. The rolling limestone hills lured this family in and their goal was a single minded one: to make great wines from the limestone rich soils here. Fast forward 20 years and Greystone is one of the great (and, some might say, yet to be fully discovered) wineries in this outstanding wine region. Not least due to the work of winemaker Dom Maxwell and general manager Nick Gill, who began working together in 2005 and has grown along with the brand and quality. 

Ata Rangi Pinot Gris is modelled on the classic style of wines from Alsace in France and is made from vines which are now over 23 years old. 

The grapes are fermented in older oak barrels, which provide texture and body to the finished wine, which tastes spicy and has flavours of beeswax, lemon curd and fresh pastry, all of which add complexity and softness to this smooth off dry white from one of Martinborough's first four wineries.

The name Ata Rangi is Maori for dawn sky and was chosen to portray the new beginning that the start of this winery represented for founder Clive Paton in the late 1970s.

This West Auckland Pinot Gris is made in a dry style with grapes from Kumeu, fermented with indigenous yeasts and given extended maturation on lees following fermentation. This adds richness and complexity to this youthful white. It drinks well now and can hold for a couple of years as a good quality dry white. 

Kumeu River Wines began life as San Marino Wines in 1944 when Croatian immigrant couple, Mick and Kat? Brajkovich, bought a small property with a vineyard on it. Their descendents now own and run Kumeu River Wines, which produces 250,000 bottles of wine annually from its owns 30 hectares of vineyards in Kumeu and from another 10 hectares, owned by local grape growers.