#Who does awa collections collect for full#
Waldron is a warm, stony site that produces full flavoured, richly concentrated fruit that makes for vividly fruity wines. Fletcher, farmed by Colin, Chris and Michelle Fletcher, is on especially low vigour stony soils.Īccording to the fabulously informative back label just 17% of the wine went through malolactic fermentation, which made sense once I tasted it and noticed the high acidity. The two vineyards are very close to each other in the Rapaura district of the Wairau Plains, the ‘Golden Triangle’. It is a blend of 70% Waldron Vineyard and 30% Fletcher Vineyard fruit. So, I actually know a great deal about how this wine was made. One great thing about this bottle is that the back label is wonderfully detailed, unlike the current labels. Marlborough – the label rather elegantly states “Marlborough Region”
#Who does awa collections collect for pdf#
Map of New Zealand’s wine regions – click for a larger view – non watermarked PDF versions are available by agreement. Frankly at 23 years old it could well have been. Would it be oxidised and just too far gone to drink. How old is too old? I was certainly nervous about this one. Opening an old bottle of wine is always nerve wracking. It looked quite dark, although it was hard to tell through the green bottle. The level looked pretty good, but the colour slightly worried me. I hadn’t kept it deliberately, but it was left over from a tasting about 20 years ago and I simply never got around to doing anything with it. It was my last bottle of 1994 Villa Maria Reserve Chardonnay from Marlborough. Well he was and so I brought the bottle in on the tube. I was chatting away to George and commented that I had found an old bottle of Villa Maria wine in my cellar and asked if he was around the next day to try it with me. Among much else they have also experimented, very successfully, with Albariño, Orange Wine and a new wine called Ngakirikiri, a super premium release is a Cabernet Sauvignon dominated blend from the Gimblett Gravels growing area in Hawkes Bay and it is a magnificent wine.
That seems a long time ago now, but it was only 2004 in fact. George led the charge on the move to screw cap seals for instance.
What I especially admire about Villa Maria is that they make wines that people really love and that have huge recognition among consumers, but are still keen to innovate and try new styles of wine and new ways of working. In addition George also owns the Vidal, Esk Valley and Te Awa estates in Hawke’s Bay as well as the Thornbury range, whose Central Otago Pinot Noir is one of New Zealand’s best value wines. As a whole the range is very impressive and it is easy to see why it one of Drinks International’s Most Admired Wine Brands in the world. I have been involved with Villa Maria either directly or indirectly since 1987 and the wines are never less than good and frequently very good indeed. His achievements are amazing and from humble beginnings Villa Maria is now the largest privately owned winery in New Zealand, indeed it is the largest New Zealand owned winery in the country. He founded Villa Maria, the famous New Zealand wine producer, in 1961 and owns it to this day. I took this photograph at the Esk Valley winery in Hawke’s Bay, which is also part of the group. Sir George Fistonich, the founder, owner and driving force behind Villa Maria.
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