Sparkling

Tasting notes
Pale golden in colour with a fine perlage. Aromas of toasted oats, rock melon and nuances of tropical fruits leading to a warm honeycomb finish in the glass. On the palate the yeast autolytic evolution unfolds with the fine acid backbone to reveal a complex mineral finish. Extra Brut in style, this very dry Methode Traditionelle is best enjoyed as an aperitif or to accompany an Entree course. 

Viticulture
Clone UCD6 Chardonnay
Hand harvested as whole bunches from the Lower Wairau plains of Marlborough.
Picked on the 18 of March 2020 at 17.5 Brix, 13g/L Titratable Acidity, PH 2.9.

Winemaking
Whole bunch pressed to extract no more than 580L/tonne.
Inoculated with a yeast isolate from Champagne.
Fermented and aged in both Stainless steel vats and Oak Barriques.
Full Malolactic fermentation.
The base wine is assembled and tirage bottled 8 months from harvest.

Technical Summary
Sur lee bottle aging Minimum 36 months (refer to back label)
Dosage 2.0g/L
Alcohol 12.0 %

Tasting notes
Light yellow gold in colour with a fine persistent bead. Aromas of white peach, lemon citrus and crisp green apple. Notes of baked bread and ginger spice on the nose with a subtle nutty character. On the palate a crisp acidity is balanced with creamy textures held up by a concentrated long finish. Extra Brut in style, this very dry Methode Traditionelle is best enjoyed as an aperitif or to accompany an Entree course.

Viticulture
Clone 95 Chardonnay
Hand harvested as whole bunches from the Korokipo region of the Hawke?s Bay
Picked on the 6th of March 2019 at 18.6 Brix, 11.0g/L Titratable Acidity, PH 3.16.

Winemaking
Whole bunch pressed to extract no more than 580L/tonne.
Inoculated with a yeast isolate from Champagne.
Fermented and aged in both Stainless steel vats and Oak Barriques.
Full Malolactic fermentation. The base wine is assembled and tirage bottled 8 months from harvest.

Technical Summary
Sur lee bottle aging Minimum 36 months (refer to back label)
Dosage 3.0g/L
Alcohol 12.0 %

Winemaker's notes

We are proud to present the third museum release of our Nautilus Cuvee Marlborough Brut NV. This incredible wine has had ten years on yeast lees before being disgorged in October 2023. This extended time, resting in the presence of the yeast lees, has led to a complex nutty aroma and a rich and generous palate that still retains freshness. This takes our premium Methode Traditionnelle wine to a whole new dimension. This wine was originally disgorged and released in 2016. A single bin was kept back on its yeast lees.

Winemaking and viticulture

Three vineyard sites are managed to produce fruit for Nautilus Cuv?e, giving us a range of flavour influences. All grapes are hand picked and whole bunch pressed with only the finest free run juice reserved. The individual base wines are fermented with a selected champagne yeast and left of lees until undergoing a full malolactic fermentation in the traditional Champenoise style. Blending typically occurs in September, and at this stage a portion of reserve wine is introduced to add complexity and character to
the Cuvee in a traditional non vintage style. Typically between 5% and 15%, the reserve wine, consisting of base wine held back from previous vintages, is used.

Ideal food match
Try with delicious fresh oysters or parmesan wafers.

70% Viognier and 30% Sauvignon Blanc made with the ancestral method of bottle fermentation and no disgorgement (akin to Petillant Naturel).

A very sophisticated yet quaffable sparkler with real complexity. 

This is a fresh take on Blanc de Blanc, made from 100% hand-picked Chardonnay fruit in Methode Traditionelle style (bottle fermented, individually disgorged, topped-up and re-capped). The nose is full of crunchy green apples, brioche buns and minerals. The palate is medium-bodied, slightly creamy, and singing with punchy citrus, vibrant acidity, and a soft apple note to finish.

A very fun, very refreshing bubbles. Perfect for celebrations big and small.

PS - Marceline is named after one of our sausage dogs. She’s cute, blonde, easily excitable and friends with everyone she meets. She emulates everything we want you to feel drinking this wine!

Balance and harmony combine together in this light and subtle champagne. Its blend is made up of Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and Meunier sourced from the very best sites of the Champagne region. It is the ideal partner to delight your guests on every occasion, both as an aperitif and throughout the entirety of a meal.

Commercial Description

Le Champ - French for bubble.   A delicious bottle fermented Methode Sparkling, this latest (limited) release is from Gisborne grown Chardonnay. The single vineyard Blanc de Blancs is from the Ormond Valley. Handpicked and whole bunch pressed, with only 550 litres per tonne extraction it has been bottle fermented and stored in this bottle for 14 years prior to riddling in batches late 2022 and 2023. The wine has been re sealed under crown cap to remove the cork influence and deliver the pureness of Methode Champenoise aging. Dosage is 10 G/L

This wine possesses a very fine bubble, yeast derived savoury aromas and flavours, with a creaminess and freshness.  With touches of lemon and mushroom on the palate, the off dry sweetness is balanced with acidity.

We are delighted to bring this wine to market. Purposefully under stated on the label we hope you agree the wine talks for itself. The creamy mousse is perfect as a lunch time refresher or aperitif to enjoy with canapes, tapas, and antipasto. Best served chilled in a tall glass

Colour: Light lime pale in colour with a fine creamy bubble.

Aromas: Burnt Citrus and peachy stone fruit mushroom and fresh baked bread

Palate: Off dry, fresh, and clean flavours of lemon and nectarine. A tantalising lingering palate cleansing finish.

Gorgeous dry sparkling rose made the same way as champagne by French-bornw, Marlborough-based wine pioneer, Daniel le Brun, who marked 40 years of winemaking in New Zealand in 2000. 

Le Brun pioneered methode traditionelle sparkling wines in New Zealand in the early 1980s, releasing his first bubbly in 1985 and marketing it as made the same way as champagne, only at a fraction of the cost. 

This toasty rich, full bodied pink number is made 100% from Pinot Noir grapes which were fermented to 12.5% ABV with 7.5 grams of residual sugar per litre ? almost bone dry and it tastes like it too, with that smidgeon of grapeyness adding beautiful balance. It was aged for 18 months on lees prior to disgorgement. Ongoing disgorgement means fresh wines remain on the market. 

Domaine Rolet is considered one of the flagship wines of the Jura d?partement, a wine region located between Burgundy and Switzerland. This region's cool climate wine region expresses itself in a range of white and red grapes that typically enjoy cooler climates. The most planted grapes in the region are Chardonnay  and Savagnin; a specialty to this area, which has traditionally been vinified under a veil of yeast, not unlike the aging of sherry but with quite different results in terms of aromas and flavour, which can be complex, savoury and nutty. The main red grapes in Jura are Poulsard, Trousseau and Pinot Noir.

Deep, dark, rich and spicy with multi layered textural refinement, a full body, dry flavours and full spectrum of dark ripe plums held together in a beautifully structured sparkling wine. This special wine represents the great heights of bottle fermented Shiraz - it is the only Australian sparking wine, red or white, that features in the Langton's Classification VII of Australian Wine.

Rockford Wines' legacy

Rockford Wines is an icon itself and a relatively new one, established in 1971 by Robert O'Callaghan, who has forged a reputation for preserving winemaking tradition and saving many of the world's oldest grape vines from being pulled up in the Australian Government's vine pull schemes of the 1970s and 1980s.

The Rockford vintage shed houses equipment from 50 to 100 years ago, which was discarded by other wineries as modernisation took over.

THE DRINKING
With hand-picked Chardonnay grapes in late summer, this Blanc de Blancs is a rustic and unfussy wine with a foamy mousse and biscuit and freshly baked bread aromas. It’s refreshing, fruity and perky on the palate with layers of pear, cherry and orange zest. To be enjoyed during the summer months, well chilled to quell that dissolved CO2. Unfiltered and unfined, this is a charming lo-fi natural wine.

THE GROWING
We will always remember 2021 as the perfect vintage for our dry farmed vines; as though I had direct dial to Hughie the weather god, we were blessed with decent dollops of rain at the optimum times during the growing season, much appreciated as our vines were recovering from the drought conditions of 2020. The one brix a week rule book was thrown out the window in 2021 and we had to be on our toes, ready to pick at a moment's notice, as the brix (sugar levels) were rising on a daily basis.

THE MAKING
Hand-picked single clone 95 Chardonnay grapes from our 'Puriri' block were whole bunch pressed and the juice put into a stainless-steel tank where it was cold settled for 24 hours then racked into its fermentation tank. No yeast or additions were made, apart from some organic yeast nutrient, to help to complete the wild ferment. The decision when to bottle is always a challenging one, too much unfermented sugars and you have a too fizzy bottle rocket in your hands, too little sugars and you have all sausage without the sizzle. Much like the picking decision, I had to base my bottling decision on experience, taste and sugar levels. The ferment tank was chilled down to 2 degrees C for 48 hours then lifted onto my trailer, driven back to our vineyard and gravity bottled at Zeelandt Brewery by the same crew who picked the grapes.

TECHNICAL NOTES
PICKING DATE: 4 March 2021
pH: 3.38
ACIDITY: 5.47
RS: 1.34
BOTTLING: 7 April 2021
F(SO2): 8.8T
(SO2): 24

Daniel le Brun and his family celebrated 40 years of pioneering methode traditionelle in Marlborough in 2020. Le Brun comes from a long line French sparkling wine makers with family history in the Champagne region dating back to 1684. The Le Brun family has had a profound impact on the style and quality of New Zealand bubbles.

This wine is made from 100% Marlborough grown grapes, as are all wines made by No 1 Family Estates.

The House of Ruinart makes one of the most delicious champagnes we stock here in store; this sensationally full bodied, creamy blanc de blancs. This champagne is made 100% from Chardonnay and is a multi vintage blend with notes of intense white floral and peach aromas intermingled with hints of golden ripe yellow fruit and a complexity of white nutty notes on the finish. Crisp refreshing acidity adds length and tension to every great sip, which finishes with a lingering flavour. 

Most of the grapes in this wine and those in all Ruinart champagnes are grown in the C?te des Blancs and Montagne de Reims terroirs in Champagne.

* The House of Ruinart was first established in the Champagne region in 1729 and was inspired by a monk. 

La Grande Dame is one of the great champagnes and is a big, dry, toasty, full bodied wine, made from 90% Pinot Noir, which adds layers of savoury depths to this complex bubbly, and 10% Chardonnay. It is named in homage to the Grands Cru vineyards from which the grapes in this wine come, from Champagne villages A?, Bouzy, Ambonnay, Verzy and Verzenay and 47% Chardonnay from Avize, Oger and Le Mesnil-sur-Oger. 

Its name also pays homage to the Grande Dame of Champagne, the late widow Clicquot, whose main legacy is to have left both the brand and the region in better condition than she found them, mostly famously by inventing riddling; the turning of the bottle to remove the yeast sediment into its neck, prior to disgorgement. This resulted in higher quality, cleaner, fresher bubbles in both look and taste. Her quest was quality and she is widely credited with having raised it significantly in the Champagne region and in the bottles it produces.