"Pale lemon colour.  Wonderful, slightly evolved Riesling nose with kiwi fruit and lime marmalade scents.  Crystalline purity with beautifully balanced fruit : acidity : sweetness.  Long." Can you taste that?! That is the summary we received from the judges' notes at the International Wine Challenge 2010. Their description of our  Sandihurst True & Daring Riesling 2007 which they awarded a Gold medal. I love it (the description and the wine). This is one blog post that doesn't get a picture - ...

Not exactly wine related. Just a great ad.

Six of our Sandihurst newsgroup members were pretty quick off the mark last week when responding to our latest newsletter in order to secure their winning bottles of our 2007 True & Daring Riesling . Congratulations to Aaron of Dalligton, Kelly from Spreydon, Christina from Wellington, Rebecca from Christchurch, Chris from Christchurch and Sarah from Christchurch. Well done and enjoy your wine! Becoming part of our ...

Pinot Gris or, "The False Friend", as Olivier Humbrecht labelled it when he came to New Zealand to speak at the Aromatics symposium a couple of years ago. Certainly the white grape-du-jour of New Zealand in the past few years with a huge increase in plantings and subsequent new wines on the market. However we seem to be heading down ...

Or have I just discovered a new planet? Or could it be a disco ball?  What is it? Despite its 3D effect it is in fact a picture I took today as I was racking some white wine from one tank to another. Close to the bottom of the tank and with only my torchlight to guide me this spherical new world ...

Eureka! I Hope! Looks like the blog may now be linking through to our new facebook page. That gives you two places to find up to date news on Sandihurst. Fingers crossed that it continues as smoothly as drinking an award winning Sandihurst Pinot Noir!

Crisp Pork Belly with pineapple salsa  matched with the 2007 True & Daring Riesling  ( Gold medal winner at the 2010 International Wine Challenge). Perfectly cooked Venison with beetroot puree matched with  the Sandihurst 2007 Central Otago Pinot Noir (Gold medal winner at the 2009 International Wine Challenge).  Enough to get your mouth watering? These two dishes, created by head ...

From this picture you can see in a nutshell the process I go through when pressing the Pinot Noir skins here at Sandihurst Winery. The fermenter holds around 1.5 tonnes of grapes. Once fermentation is finished the skins gradually start to sink to the bottom of the vat. With regular tasting I make the call on when the wine ...

The new Facebook page for Sandihurst is being built - hopefully with a fully functioning link from our blog through to our page. This is a test post to see if the application does what it is supposed to do. It's a digital jungle out there!

What's new in the world of Wine Gift ideas? Not only can you buy wine from our Sandihurst online shop, now you too can have this season's must have gift - your very own pair of Wine Socks. Modelled on our winemakers own feet, they come in two styles - 'CENTRAL OTAGO PINOT NOIR' (as seen above) or 'WAIPARA RIESLING'. Wine Socks extend all the way to the ...