New Zealand

Just had this photo through from the folk at Villa Maria, along with a copy of their 2009 Harvest Report (it’s here), showing the damage that working a vintage can wreak on your mitts. I’ve never actually worked in a winery but I did end up with similar coloured hands […]

Hands to the pump

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Another weekend of foraging in the cellar and finding some Alice in Wonderland-style bottles that had ‘Drink Me’ written (invisibly of course) all over them. I last tasted the Mission Vineyards Reserve Syrah 2002 from the Gimblett Gravels in Hawkes Bayin autumn 2005. Then, I said ‘drink up to 2009’ […]

A Mission to the Judean Hills

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I’ve tended not to like cheap New Zealand Bordeaux-inspired reds – scrawny and charmless and with overenthusiastic oak-ageing. A bit like cheap Bordeaux, really, although perhaps not the oak thing. The good news is that the Kiwis seem to have realised that such wines aren’t their forte, and have virtually […]

Villa Maria Private Bin Merlot 2006

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