Reindeer Sweater Wine Bottle Cover Four days to go before Christmas and as per my usual style the Christmas gifts are left to the last minute. With the traffic through the cellar door being pretty hectic it doesn't allow much time to trot into town and browse. But of course if all else fails there are the websites that can offer all you could ever think ...

Why start something when you know it is going to add to the list of things that you don’t get to do because you’ve added too many things to the ‘to do’ list already? I don’t know the answer but we’ve done it again so now we’ll just have to see it through. Welcome to our new website cum blog. Between the three of us, we’ll try and keep you ...

Pinot Noir in the Brennan vineyard, Gibbston Valley, flowering just underway, a slightly cooler start to the season than normal but remarkably no frosts in November. The iconic Cardrona pub on the Crown Range road from Queenstown to Wanaka Looking back across to the Pisa vineyards ...

Every year at Sandihurst we order a number of new French oak barrels from a variety of cooperages for our Pinot Noir. The amount is usually around 25-35% new oak in each wine (about 40 barrels), depending on the blend. Barrels from any one cooper differ in the forest the wood comes from (all forests are on a strict 160 year rotation), their control over the wood selection process, the grain of the wood, the method of drying the oak, ...

Exciting times as we have finished bottling our 2008 Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc. All 3150 six bottle cases of it. Its great to be making a Sauvignon for the first time but that cant be said for the bottling process itself, unless repetative tedium is your thing. Smaller wineries like us dont have their own bottling line but employ a ...