Winery notes:

Auntsfield continues the proud heritage of Marlborough?s first vineyard and winery established in 1873. Our Single Block wines display qualities distinctive to grapes grown within a defined
area at Auntsfield Estate. Consistent quality and character over many vintages has separated these single blocks out as producing our Reserve Wines.

Cob Cottage Chardonnay ? This small 2 hectare block is situated at the very southern elevated corner of the vineyard next to some old Oak trees. It has a unique free draining soil made up of crushed Greywacke rock that has fallen from the steep hill behind.

Displays concentrated aromas of ripe nectarine and white peach with undertones of citrus peel. Lifted notes of dried herbs and wood spice compliment nuanced aromas of roasted hazelnut, wet stone and honeycomb.

The pallet is concentrated and beautifully textured with a flowing mouth-feel. The fruit weight and oak balance layer with luscious acidity to provide a superb fresh, linear and creamy structure.

This is one of our staff favourites at Regional Wines; Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc which is dry, full of flavours of tropical fruit with notes of zingy citrus coupled with tropical fruit and a long finish. 

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.

Silky, lithe and lovely savoury Martinborough Pinot Noir, named after the late Ted Wilde, co owner of Cirrus Vineyard south of Martinborough village and home to the grapes in this wine. This elegant wine is made with grapes grown in the outstanding dry, warm 2020 vintage; a year with a long autumn and great quality fruit, which made fabulous wines such as this beautiful fragrant red and dark cherry take on Pinot Noir, which has a medium body and beautifully balanced acidity leading to a long finish. 

Celestia is the apt name for one of Martinborough's most structured, serious and age worthy Pinot Noirs made using 100% whole bunch fermentation, a technique that adds structure and depth to the wine. This is the first vintage of this wine is from the superlative 2020 vintage and name comes from the big sky views from Big Sky Vineyard in Te Muna Valley, Martinborough. Celestia Pinot Noir is made with 100% whole bunch fermentation in seasoned puncheons with ageing for two years. It was bottled unfined and unfiltered. The result is a very perfumed wine with aromas of rosehips, black tea, black fruit and undergrowth, with a dense and dark palate, fine tannins and a satiny texture.

The Big Sky story

Jeremy Corban and Katherine Jacobs founded Big Sky Wines in the Te Muna Valley, Martinborough, in 2005. They have since expanded their small vineyard, which is predominantly planted in Pinot Noir.

Testify is the top red wine from Decibel and this one is a dark, juicy and spicy red made from a blend of Malbec and Merlot. This powerhouse wine spent 20 months in new oak, which flatters its ripe fruit flavours from 2019, a warm dry and sunny years when grapes got super ripe and juicy. This wine is a serious contender for ageing but it is also an impressive full bodied, dry red wine right now. Oak sits nicely in this wine, without intruding on the ripe fruit flavours. 

Wai-iti is a single vineyard Pinot Noir from Waipara's The Boneline winery. Generously fruity and full bodied with great structure and texture on the palate. This is an elegant wine at a great price.

Clean and crisp, dry Pinot Gris from Marlborough that is predominantly fermented in stainless steel to preserve the bright green fruit flavours, but also has a portion that is fermented in barrel to provide texture and complexity. Five months on the lees also gives the wine further flavour and builds texture in the wine, adding weight and complex, smooth and notes of creamy flavour. 

Two Paddocks Pinot Noir is actor and winemaker Sam Neill's introduction red to his range of wines from Central Otago. It's made from hand harvested grapes which are fermented and matured in French oak barriques. It is 100% certified organic, which reflects the Central Otago wine region's pre-eminence as New Zealand's leading organic wine region - 16% of the region's vines are certified organic with another 7% in the conversion process, which means that by 2023, 23 % of the vines will be certified.

One per customer please - thank you

Cornish Point is one of Central Otago's great Pinot Noirs and is a dark fruited, smooth, dry and full bodied expression of Pinot Noir from the eponymous 7.6 hectare vineyard. The vineyard is typically the first to be harvested for Felton Road as it is a warm site, bordered by the Clutha River on one side and the Kawarau River on the other. This is relatively unusual, in being almost entirely surrounded by water, which moderates the microclimate on this site, enabling earlier ripening grapes with soft, smooth tannic structure and bold ripe fruit flavours of black cherry and summer berries, supported by a firm backbone of tannin. 

Cornish Point is an old gold miners? settlement located adjacent to the Hartley and Reilly diggings where the first large find of gold was made in the Central Otago gold rush. It was named after the Cornish gold miners who lived there and was abandoned in the late 19th century when it was planted as an apricot orchard.

About Felton Road

Felton Road winemaker Blair Walter and owner Nigel Greening (who bought the winery in 2000) are a formidable team producing elegant, powerful southern Pinots from their estate vineyards, all now organically and biodynamically certified. 

They specialise in producing limited bottlings from their different vineyard blocks and sites in Bannockburn, Central Otago. 

Le Sol means sunshine or soil, depending on which language you're talking - and either way, it is a lovely evocative description of one of the best Syrahs made in Hawke's Bay every year. This incredibly powerful wine is a beautiful spicy expression of the great Syrah grape from the Northern Rhone Valley. It was aged for 27 months in French oak barriques.

Evocative by name and by nature; a wine with great structure thanks to 10% whole bunch fermentation adding depth to the smooth, deliciously savoury flavours. Black Rabbit Vineyard is made from grapevines grown on soils that are 400 million years old on a north facing site that was planted in 2002 at an elevation of 250 to 315 metres above sea level.

The high temperature variation between day and night lends the grapes an elongated window of ripening, which results in savoury notes, a full body and complex flavours of black cherries, a hint of cedar and savoury oak with smooth dark plum aromas and a smooth, long finish. 

The grapes were fermented with wild yeasts and given 21 days on skins and maturation in oak for a year prior to being bottled, unfixed. 

The grapes in this wine come from the Yarrum Vineyard on the Brancott/Ben Morven ridge, a hillside from which all grapes are hand harvested and fermented with wild yeasts and daily plunging. This rich, dark, full bodied and flavoursome Pinot Noir has huge structure and ability to age, with earthy notes and ripe dark fruit flavours. This is one of Marlborough?s top Pinot Noirs. Worthy of a decanter, a large glass and time to enjoy its complexity.