Villa Maria Wines

Marlborough is stepping up to the plate when it comes to producing Pinot Noir and we think this one from multi-award winning Villa Maria ticks all the right boxes. All the classic elements you could hope to find in a Pinot are here, elegant and seductive cherry fruit, complexing aromas of plums and spice add interest too. As well as a finessed palate it’s beautifully concentrated and rich with full-bodied fruit and nicely framed tannins. Enjoy it now or cellar for a few years to see how it develops.

Villa Maria has become one of the most awarded Kiwi wineries, drawing on vineyard holdings spread all over the country. This wine, made with fruit from Hawkes Bay shows how far New Zealand has come with Syrah or Shiraz as we affectionately know it. It’s the soil and climate of the region that lends the wines such distinctive flavour profiles. It’s loaded with red fruits, florals and peppery spice with a fleshy, soft palate. Nicely balanced with soft tannin and natural acid, it goes hand in hand with food.

Villa Maria almost dominate the New Zealand wine scene with an amazing range of wines and vineyards. This Pinot is sourced from the Wairau and Awatere Valleys of Marlborough that provide the perfect climate and soil for Pinot to thrive. All the character you look for in quality Pinot is crammed in here, raspberry, ripe cherries and some spice on the nose while the palate is soft and savoury with complex web of fine grained tannins holding it all in place. A great accompaniment to all things mushroom and gamey.

More Gris goodness from the Cellars of Villa Maria, New Zealand’s most prolific and awarded winery. This shows the level of care that goes into the fruit selection for the cellar range with Gris grapes sourced exclusively from the Awatere Valley in Marlborough. Typically varietal with pear and spice leading to an expansive palate that’s lifted with apple, almond and cinnamon. It’s fleshy and fruity with excellent balance and persistence. It would go well with a fresh pasta with blue swimmer crab, chilli, and lots of olive oil and herbs.

Kiwi reds are gaining amazing credibility in the wine world and thanks to Villa Maria being able to draw on fruit from regions all over NZ they are able to make this Merlot from Hawkes Bay. Forget the doomsayers who say that Merlot can’t be made well in the New World because this disproves the theory. This easy drinking wine has a varietal nose of plum and berries with some gentle oak, before a plush palate with soft and generous tannins. An excellent food wine, it goes well with red meat, pasta dishes even pizza.

It’s the benchmark of New Zealand and no one does it better than Villa Maria when it comes to Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc. Intense and lively, the fruit for this stunning Savvy is sourced from the Awatere and Wairau Valley and is a quintessential taste of a style we’ve come to love. You’ll find gooseberry, passionfruit, lime juice and nettle even a tinge of capsicum. The palate is all about weight and expression; it carries a mouth-filling vibrant richness and finishes crisp and crunchy with superb length. Asian dishes do it justice as do anything with goat’s cheese.

Is Pinot Gris the great white hope for New Zealand after the flood of Sauvignon Blanc? If it tastes as good as this then we’d happily do a swap for a while. Fruit comes from Gisborne, Hawkes Bay and Marlborough to create a wine with texture and finesse. It’s a lively nose showing apple and pear and some trademark spice that’s associated with the variety. Definitely a food wine this, as it’s rich in texture, nicely balanced with a dry finish. It would be a sensational match for oily fish like salmon or trout.

Villa Maria is one of the success stories of the New Zealand wine scene. They won their first award in 1962 and since then have not looked back and now export to over 50 countries worldwide. They are famed for their Sauvignon Blanc and this Private Bin is sourced from two areas of Marlborough. It has all the freshness of sticking your head into a fruit salad, showing gooseberry, passionfruit, and lime all framed by a regional herbaceousness. The palate is juicy, intense, fulsome and refreshing with crisp, zingy acids.

Villa Maria remain one of the most awarded and prolific producers coming out of Marlborough, and it’s not just the Sauvignon Blanc that they are famed for. This Chardonnay was sourced from Gisborne and Hawkes Bay with a touch of Marlborough so that the full spectrum of Chardonnay flavours can express themselves. Peach, pear and citrus provide the intense aromas and all appear on the palate amidst some nutty oak complexity. A wine with an exquisite creamy texture that is well structured and balanced.

This wine is Fruit-driven in style, exhibiting ripe peach and pear aromas with underlying hints of citrus blossom. On the palate the upfront fruit flavours are followed by a creamy texture with integrated oak characters. A richly structured wine that is soft and styled for enjoyment now.

This wine has a perfumed bouquet of ripe cherries and raspberry fruits - hallmarks of Marlborough Pinot Noir. On the palate the wine displays ripe fruit with complex savoury and spice elements. Soft, silky, fine-grained tannins provide structure and definition, yet also allow for the wine to be consumed young. Villa Maria Awards & Accolades "Delicious, easy drinking, with good density of ripe plum/spice flavours, oak complexity and a silky, lingering finish." 4 Stars, Winestate - Michael Cooper, Michael Ivicevich & Nick Picone, April 2010 "Ripe nose smelling of toffee apples, musk sticks and red delicious apples. Intense fruit flavours – sweet and fresh with vibrant acidity and...

This wine has a subtle white pepper note, layered with bright berry fruit and crushed violet aromas on the nose. The palate is rich with pepper, plum fruit characters, spice notes and cocoa, complimented by silky tannins. Food Match: Most red meats and game and a variety of cheeses. Villa Maria Awards & Accolades "Full-flavoured, distinctly spicy blend of Dartmoor Valley (60%) and Gimblett Gravels fruit, including 2% viognier. Peppery bouquet with good complexity. Mouthfilling and generous palate, with blackcurrant, plum and spice flavours, fresh, ripe and rounded." 4 Stars, Winestate - Michael Cooper, February 2011 "This is a very firm medium-bodied wine. The nose is quite gravel...

Bright, deep crimson hues lead to a vibrant nose of red plum and berry fruits with subtle cedary undertones. A full, textured palate with soft tannins makes this an excellent food wine. Villa Maria Awards & Accolades "Youthful, concentrated red with deep, bright colour and concentrated, well-ripened plum and spice flavours. Partly oak-matured style, fresh and vibrantly fruity, with some savoury notes and a rich, firm finish." 4 Stars, Winestate - Michael Cooper, Michael Ivecivich & Phil Brodie, October 2010

A beautifully intense and lively wine, overflowing with aromas of ripe gooseberry, melon and passionfruit with hints of grapefruit, lime and nettles. The wine is mouth-filling and juicy with vibrant fruit and fantastic mid palate richness and weight, finishing rich and racy with excellent length and crispness. Food Match: Salmon, tomato, green bean and potato salad. Villa Maria Awards & Accolades "Villa Maria is probably New Zealand’s best performing large wine company in quality terms, so it’s no surprise that its “savvy” is one of the best. Blackcurrant, tropical fruit and leafy aromas have more depth and dimension than most, and the plump palate has intense, slightly fruit-sweet f...

This powerful Sauvignon Bl anc is bursting with a myriad of flavours including gooseberry, passionfruit, fresh citrus, melon and nettle-dominant herbaceous aromas. The wine has an e nticing palate with layers of juicy flavours, intensity and concentration, finishing witha refreshing crisp, clean line of acidity.

Medium, yellow-green; a pure and clean bouquet with that distinctive melon aroma of cool grown fruit. On the palate there is a wider spectrum of fruit flavours ranging through citrus, ripe pear, white peach and melon, backed by subtle oak. As close to perfection as one could imagine for a wine of this price.

Medium red-purple; there is attractive, sweet raspberry and plum trait on the bouquet matched by well-handled oak. The wine is not a heavyweight, but has very attractive red fruit flavour supported by appropriate oak and subtle tannins. Gold medal 1998 Liquorland Royal Easter Show.

Light green-yellow; an incredibly fragrant and aromatic bouquet with tropical passionfruit overtones to rich and seductive gooseberry fruit. The palate delivers all the fruit flavour the bouquet promises, and in a similarly exotic spectrum, balanced by perfect acidity.