Wine Reviews

Vibrant, firm and juicy, with fresh Honeycrisp apple, lemon curd and orange zest, plus a fresh thread of acidity. Shows added complexity on the finish, where details of panna cotta and brioche emerge.

Mixes power and elegance, offering wild blackberry, blueberry and cherry flavors that are fresh and precise, with notes of forest floor, crushed thyme and creamy oolong tea, plus fine-grained tannins.

This vintage of Aroha shows the cool, wet season via green peppercorn, minty chocolate and dried herbal notes that weave between the currant and blueberry fruit. It’s quite tight—even austere—on the palate at the moment, lacking some plushness to make it ready-to-drink now. But it’s not without elegance and finesse, it perhaps just needs time to unwind.

Toasted salted nuts and grilled melon indicate a power and richness here from first sniff. There’s subtle weight to the palate. Flavor is muffled, but there’s lovely balance between textural creaminess and fresh acidity. Still young, this should evolve with a few more years in bottle.

2023 will go down as “the cyclone year” in New Zealand’s North Island. This is a cool climate expression, there’s no denying it, but it’s a solid, harmonious wine nonetheless, delivering aromas of fresh cran-raspberries with bass notes of forrest undergrowth, dried herbs, ground pepper and mint dark chocolate. Mid-weight with a tart finish, crunchy acidity, a graphite core and sappy, somewhat astringent tannins, this should evolve decently well with time in bottle.