Pinot Gris

Lifted notes of floral and ripe white peach with succulent flavours of red apple, pear and spice with a refreshingly crisp finish.

In Essential Awatere fashion the finish is lively, crisp and lingering. A delicious wine that brings together ?new world? fruit and ?old world? elegance and minerality.

Saddleback is the second label of Central Otago winery Peregrine. The region offers a cool climate with large diurnal (day to night) shifts in temperature, perfect for developing the subtle flavours and keen acidity that really makes Pinot Gris tick. This superb value wine is made with grapes from the Bendigo (39%), Pisa (34%) and Gibbston (27%) sub regions of Central Otago, is 100% hand harvested and fermented on the lees for 2 months prior to blending and bottling. A dry Pinot Gris  with floral, citrus and ginger aromatics and flavours of fresh pear, apricot and stonefruit.

Vin de Paille is a method of producing concentrated, sweet wines through extended drying of the harvested grapes. The earliest written records go back to 800BC and the resulting wines are very long-lived.

This wine is made from Pinot Gris from the steep half-hectare block on the Home Vineyard.

The grapes were carefully hand-picked onto racks and then dried in the loft of our vineyard barn for 45 days. The dried grapes were then slowly whole-bunch pressed over 6 hours. The rich juice was then fermented with indigenous ?wild? yeast.

Fresh and lively, it sings on the palate! Pear, apple, spice, florals and honeyed notes can all be found in this complex wine made with Pinot Gris from our Home Vineyard site. The luscious texture is followed by incredible refreshing acidity, leaving the palate cleansed and wanting more.

This rich, layered and complex wine manages to retain freshness and structure thanks to the elevation of the site and the concentration from the drying process.

The Prophet?s Rock Pinot Gris comes from both the Home and Rocky Point vineyards. Planting in these warmer areas of Central Otago and practising careful viticulture allows for the production of a very aromatic style of Pinot Gris, while retaining the trademark freshness of the region. This wine has achieved an avid following and wide acclaim, despite very limited production.

The vinification is heavily influenced by winemaker Paul Pujol's time in Alsace where use of wild yeast, multiple small vessels and long ageing are the norm. After long slow ferments the various components are aged on their yeast lees before bottling.

Palliser Pinot Gris has gentle soft qualities and is off dry in taste with flavours of candied ginger and mandarin peel leading to a light bodied wine with a spicy finish.

The grapes in this wine are a combination of three vineyards; Pencarrow Vineyard 60%, the organic Om Santi Vineyard 28% and the balance from the Clouston Vineyard. A portion was fermented in old French oak barrels to provide complexity. The two portions were  blended and aged for a a further two months on lees to gain texture before bottling. 

Extremely aromatic with pear, white flower and stone fruit characteristics. Barrel fermentation adds complexity. Zesty citrus fruit notes on the palate with soft, acid freshness. A light, well balanced wine. 

White haven Pinot Gris is a versatile dry style with flavours of fresh nashi pears and crisp red apples, a medium body and textural finish. It's a great wine for everyday drinking with or without food, a lovely aperitif style to enjoy at lunch and early evening.

Whitehaven Wines began life in 1994 as a romantic business for a couple of corporate escapees, Sue and Greg White, who had given up life in the rat race of Auckland for another kind of life aboard their yacht. When sailing around the country, they took shelter in the Marlborough Sounds from Pacific storms and fell in love with the region. An easy thing to do when harbouring in the spectacularly pristine waters of the Sounds. They decided to settle there on terra firma once more and try their hands at wine production, hiring a winemaker and beginning a business which has now been around for 26 years. Greg has sadly passed away now, leaving a legacy as well as his wife and daughter, Sam, to run the winery.

Their winemaker is Peter Jackson.

Pinot Gris is the fourth most planted grape in New Zealand with a massive 2,488 hectares nationwide, inching slowly up to Chardonnay?s 3,167 hectares. It?s huge growth from just 157 hectares of Pinot Gris as recently as 2001, but numbers aside, it?s the taste that counts and Greywacke is next level in flavour. 

The grapes in this wine are from the Wrekin Terrace Vineyard in Brancott Valley where they grow on gravel over clay-loam soils, typical of the Southern Valleys in Marlborough. Three clones of Pinot Gris were all hand picked separately at high ripeness levels to provide rich fruity flavours in the finished wine, which was fermented in a combo of old French oak barriques and stainless steel tanks, all with wild yeasts to a finished 14.4% ABV with 10 grams per litre of residual sugar. 

Fresh, full bodied, off dry and intensely concentrated; one for the large glass on a decadent spring evening. 

Central Otago makes famously dry, concentrated styles of Pinot Gris and Te Kano Life Pinot Gris is an excellent example. Flavours of peach and pear flesh out the body with ginger and spicy aromas adding depth. 

The grapes were hand harvested from the Jerome vineyard which has naturally low vigour and sandy soils, which produce smaller than usual grapes with intense flavours, which produce this structured and complex Gris. 

This wine is made exclusively with hand harvested fruit from the 18 year old vines on the Blackenbrook Home block where the vines grow on Moutere clay soil covered by a layer of sandy loam. The wine making is extremely gentle with whole bunch pressing, cool fermentation, minimal pumping over, extended lees contact and using gravity to move the wine when required.

8% of the wine is aged in oak to add mouthfeel and complexity and there is no fining pre-bottling.

 At 5.7g/l of residual sugar this is dry in style.

Tasting Notes
Our Blackenbrook Pinot Gris 2019 displays delightful pear, quince and spice notes framed by a silky texture, a splash of sweetness and gentle acidity. Ideal serving temperature 15 degrees.

Silver - New Zealand Wine of the Year Awards

4 1/2 Stars Michael Cooper

This powerful wine is still very youthful. It has strong peach, pear, lychee and spice flavours with a distinct touch of complexity, slight sweetness balanced by fresh acidity and a scented bouquet.

A little old oak fermentation adds flesh and weight to this medium sweet style of Pinot Gris, which has rich flavours and characterful spicy white pear aromas. This North Canterbury Riesling has residual sugar between 10 and 20 grams per litre, which is beautifully balanced by fresh acidity which adds purity and tension to this lively wine.

This is made from organically certified grapes grown on the banks of the Waipara River in North Canterbury.

The region's cool nights and hot days add length to the ripening season, which makes it easy to ripen grapes with rich flavours. 

* Terrace Edge was named the New Zealand Organic Vineyard of the Year in 2018 and this year was named Aotearoa New Zealand Organic Winery of the Year.

Providore is a new kid on the block in Central Otago and is the brainchild of well seasoned winemaker Pete Bartle, who has made wine in the region for the past couple of decades. He buys Pinot Gris grapes from Gibbston Valley for this dry, refreshing and aromatic Pinot Gris, which is nicely balanced by fresh acidity, which adds zingyness to this medium bodied, juice white. Gibbston is the smallest of all Central Otago's sub-regions when it comes to the number of grapes planted and it is also the last place to be harvested. This long season allows a lengthy ripening season and highly flavoursome wines. 

A  very aromatic Pinot Gris with a nose exhibiting quince, dough, pear apple and cream. The palate is rich and intense with flavours of pork fat, apple and stone ruit - brought together in a bright acid frame.

This vibrant, aromatic wine has flavours of gooseberry and limes, with a lively finish. We love to drink it with seafood and pasta dishes and delicious summer salads. No cellaring required.