Mark Henderson

As part of the school from home that all families went through during lockdown a wee while back, my wife and I did a little vocabulary exercise with our daughter.

Regular readers know that I usually taste in flights of similar wines and report accordingly.

If you’ve been perusing wine aisles recently, you may have noticed growth in low and zero-alcohol wines.

I've said it before and I’ll say it again, ‘I like my job’.

Inspired by the Greek god of wind (and their 1965 Mk III Zephyr), Zephyr Wines is very much a family business. The first vines were planted in 1988, and it is now moving to Bio-Gro certified organic.

Exciting for me in the latest collection to taste my very first wine from the 2021 vintage, from the Jules Taylor stable.

In life you might question someone who goes by an alias, but in the world of grape varieties this is all very commonplace.

One of my regular tasting colleagues was in Central Otago recently and, as one does, managed to fit in a few pleasurable cellar door visits.

Today's line-up allowed me to compare a quartet of Central Otago chardonnays with a Hawke’s Bay pairing.

Today's collection covers a couple of bases with a trio of rose taking the lead.

I recently spent time pondering the age of our Central Otago wine industry and its ever-growing maturity — in vine age, the number of vintages harvested and in the accrual of knowledge in fine...

A press release from Pegasus Bay arrived in my inbox recently, celebrating their 30th vintage.

Over the course of 48 hours prior to putting this column together, I managed to taste more than 20 pinot noirs ranging in price from $22 to $120 (with a number of those north of $75 a bottle).

Many wine enthusiasts enjoy a wide range of flavour experiences, and boutique spirits fit that bill.

For all its many devotees, every day can be a sauvignon blanc day given its accessibility, affordability and sheer all-around drinkability.