# New Zealand reds in Ontario



## cpfan (May 21, 2009)

There's been a discussion in another thread about taxes on wine in Canada. Saturday is release date for a few New Zealand reds. I thought the Kiwis in the crowd (Coll and Allie) might be interested in what has made it to our shores.

http://www.vintages.com/feature/newzealand2009/index.html

Steve


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## St Allie (May 21, 2009)

Steve,

Good to see us getting our wines out there a bit more.. those are all pretty much available in the local wholesalers here and most are easily affordable.. we get them a bit cheaper obviously..without the shipping and taxes added.

The Oyster bay is an easy drinking pinot, I buy that one a lot.. if you see anything that's Esk valley or Spy Valley or Mud Brick- ( made on waiheke Island).. try those too. All the pinots listed are good.. I'm not so fussed on Coopers Creek, C J Pask are consistent though. Hawkes bay and Marlborough are the regions that tend to produce the best wines..

next question..

have you tried any of them ?

Allie


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## cpfan (May 21, 2009)

St Allie said:


> have you tried any of them ?



Allie, I'm pretty sure that I can't even buy any of these till Saturday. Although I heard that sometimes a store will put them out a day or two early by accident.

We drink VERY little commercial wine. I live near what seems like 100s of wineries and I don't even visit them.

I know that we have enjoyed Stoneleigh Sauvignon Blanc in the past. We have also drunk Cat's Pee on a Gooseberry Bush, another SB, but we preferred Stoneligh. I know that we enjoyed a NZ Pinot Noir a couple of years ago. It might have been Oyster Bay because I've seen it before, but I don't really recall the winery name.

On the non-commercial front....

I have 29 bottles of NZ Merlot aging nicely. I have 23 litres of NZ Gewurztraminer ready to bottle (for about a month now). Both are Winexpert Limited Editions.

I have about 20 bottles of Ken Ridge Classic NZ Sauvignon Blanc that we are enjoying (another limited edition from last fall).

Some friends did a Ken Ridge Showcase NZ Pinot Noir a couple of years ago. We swapped for a couple of bottles, and really enjoyed them. It's on our "would like to make" list but so are a lot of other kits, and the limited editions keep bumping them.

I was just looking at the pictures in the list again, and noticed that every bottle is a screw cap. I should have guessed that because they are all from NZ. I try not to buy screw caps, so I probbaly won't try one.

Steve


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## St Allie (May 21, 2009)

Steve,

I saw the saturday comment on the post, just wondered if you had had any other NZ reds before. Stoneleigh are a good commercial winery, very consistent. I often buy Trapiche which is an argentinian wine, the malbec and the pinot are cheap.. about $10 NZD, easy drinking with a meal. Am working on getting a good stock of my own homemade reds though.. tired of donating tax to the Govt.. ( GST is applied to everything here as well)

Pretty much everything is screwcapped in NZ. Difficult to get cork type bottles without buying them new.

I get all my friends to save the caps for me, reuse once and then discard. When they come up with screw caps I can buy from the HBS, I'll give up recycling these. I have never had an issue with a seal and they are all well sterilised and inspected before using. just doesn't look as nice as corks.

NZ'ers are big wine drinkers, my friends keep me well supplied with screwcaps!

Allie


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## Boozehag (May 21, 2009)

Oh youre in for a treat if you try some of those.

Agree with Allie, the oyster bay is a nice and affordable Pinot. Havent tried some of the others but laughed when I saw the Babich one, only because I used to hang out at the babich vineyards when I was a teenager, one of my friends was gonig out with one of the Babich boys back then!!!! I wasnt into wine in those days though!!! Shame!!!


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## St Allie (May 21, 2009)

I've never been a big fan of Babich

Allie


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## cpfan (May 22, 2009)

Allie:

I sure hope a home version of the Auscap/Stelcap comes on the market one day soon. There is another product called Novatwist that I know very little about. It can be applied manually (unlike the Auscap/Stelcap lines), but I don't know what bottles it will fit. It appears to have been designed (at least in part) for PET plastic wine bottles.

http://www.novembal.com/en/wine-and-spirits/novatwist-screw-caps.php
http://www.unopackaging.com/products (scroll down page)

Steve


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## St Allie (May 22, 2009)

I'll forward the novatwist link to the HBS, that's designed for glass bottles.. 

It's exactly what we need here with our recycled threaded bottles Steve.

Thankyou 

Allie


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## cpfan (May 22, 2009)

St Allie said:


> I'll forward the novatwist link to the HBS, that's designed for glass bottles..
> 
> It's exactly what we need here with our recycled threaded bottles Steve.
> 
> ...


If they fit the standard glass screw cap bottles, they would be great. I am a bit wary because they mention fitting PET bottles as well.

If I get a chance I'll do some exploring at my local liquor store. I know that they have had some wine in PET bottles in the last year or so.

Steve


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## kcdig (Nov 29, 2009)

We just returned from 3+ weeks tooodling around N.Z. and visited as many wineries as we could fit in; probably 30 or so.

Some of our favorite PNs came from the Martinborough region, something I never ever see here in Texas. We asked various people about importing sources, and got a lot of responses that ended with ".... Canada". 

Must be nice....

kcd
p.s. we managed to get about 33 bottles back in our suitcases


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