New Zealand’s small population, isolated location and agricultural economy have earned the country a “clean, green” image. New Zealand grapegrowers and winemakers aim to keep it that way by protecting the environmental integrity of their wine production.

To this end a pioneering set of industry standards have been developed, known as Sustainable Winegrowing New Zealand (SWNZ).   Sustainable Winegrowing New Zealand provides the framework for companies to continually work towards improving all aspects of their performance in terms of environmental, social and economic sustainability in both the vineyard and the winery.

Jackie McCullagh, Co-Ordinator Nelson Community Food Bank with Ursula and Isabelle Schwarzenbach

For every bottle of Blackenbrook Chardonnay, St Jacques Pinot Noir, Reserve Pinot Noir or Montepulciano ordered from our Web Site we will donate a can of food or some fresh fruit to the Nelson Community Food-Bank.

And what’s more: We offer 15% discount on those wines if you order a case or 5% if you go for six bottles. Free delivery to the Nelson Region, $7.00 per case to the rest of New Zealand.

To order please click  here and enter the Promo Code FOOD BANK to get your special discount.  The offer will end on Friday, 16 July or while stock lasts.

So please help us making a generous food donation to the Motueka Food Bank!

Warm Regards
Daniel & Ursula Schwarzenbach

Here are the judges’ comments:

Mineral freshness on the nose.  Crisp lemony citrus with a touch of cat pee and green gooseberry on the palate.  Refreshing passionfruit finish.

The International Wine Challenge – now in its 27th edition -  is the world’s most prestigious and influential independent wine competition.  With a record number of 46 wine producing countries entering the 2010 Challenge, the competition enjoyed a 15% increase in entries year on year with standards higher than ever.

5 Stars for Blackenbrook Pinot Gris 2009

This powerful, single-vineyard wine was hand-harvested at over 25 brix.  Very ripely scented, it is a strapping wine with fresh, rich flavours of stonefruit, lychees and spices, gentle sweetness and finely balanced acidity.  A distinctly Alsace-style wine, it should blossom with cellaring.

4 ½ Stars for Blackenbrook Riesling 2009

Very youthful, tight and racy, this estate-grown wine is a medium style with strong peach, lemon and lime flavours, woven with fresh acidity.  Vibrantly fruity, with a minerally streak, it shows excellent intensity and obvious cellaring potential.

These ratings encourage us to work even harder on bringing our vineyard into balance and keeping our winemaking very gentle …. and they demonstrate once more how perfectly Nelson is suited to the great Alsatian varieties!

The weather has been fantastic so far, with sunny dry days and cool temperatures at night – perfect for developing those intense fruit flavours we are looking for.

Daniel, vineyard manager and winemaker reckons the vineyard has never before looked so balanced:

The vineyard has a lovely feel this year, the vines are in balance and there was hardly any leaf growth since the nets went on.  The fruit has exciting flavours and is absolutely clean and healthy – a pleasure to work with!

I am convinced that having grass cover under the vines (opposed to killing any living organism with weed-spray) has made a huge difference.  It’s changed the micro-climate around the vines and the additional competition helps devigourating the vineyard  -  and the little crawlies love it, too:  I have never seen so many ear-wigs in my life!

This year we have an excellent and very loyal picking team of 15 people.  Many of them have picked for us for years and it is always a pleasure to have them back – a few muffins might go a long way!

After the last wine afficionado had left we did the price draw and the lucky winner of two bottles of fabulous Blackenbrook wines is

Alison Stringer from Wellington

Warm congratulations from the entire Blackenbrook Team.

The “Blackenbrook Open Days” at the beginning of the year were so popular, we just have to bring them back once more this season! Our winery will be open for tasting on:

Easter Saturday, 3 April 2010
and again on
Easter Monday, 5 April 2010
1pm – 5pm

Come on in and sample the freshly picked grapes, fermenting grape juice and our newly released Pinot Gris 2009 and  Reserve Pinot Noir 2007 along with our other Blackenbrook Classics – all served with delicious home-made Swiss bread and a big smile!

Special wine offers and a draw to win a gift-pack of fabulous Blackenbrook wines are awaiting you (50 Baldwin Rd, Tasman, turn off at the Tasman General Store, See Nelson Wine Map No 13).

We were honoured to see our Reserve Gewürztraminer 2008 selected to represent Nelson at the prestigious Nelson Aromatic Symposium in February. It showed beautifully and as a result received top reviews in the press:

Blackenbrook is a relatively new Nelson estate that has swiftly established itself as one of the most exciting producers of Aromatics in the region.  Made by Daniel Schwarzenbach, an ex-medical chemist and microbiologist whose wine experience spans work in Europe to time as chief winemaker at Nelson’s Seifried Estate, his Gewürztraminer is a soft, richly textured wine with subtle notes of the variety’s Turkish delight character, as well as aniseed and Middle Eastern spice.
Jo Burzynska, New Zealand Herald’s Viva

This ravishingly scented, sturdy wine was grown 500m from the coastal highway at Tasman. It offers lovely depth of ripe peach, lychee and spice flavours, slightly sweet and soft.
Four and a half Stars Michael Cooper, the Listener

And to finish off some exciting news from our Export Department:

Our first wine shipment is hitting the market in Quebec, Canada  as we speak
and we also closed new export deals with partners in Austria and
Australia this week.

The first orders to these countries will leave in April and we can’t wait to see the reaction to our wines in these competitive markets.

With the long and cold nights looming, we would like to offer a special 15% discount on our seductive Pinot Gris 2009, award-winning Reserve Gewürztraminer 2008, heart-warming Chardonnay 2008, cheerful St Jacques Pinot Noir 2008 and mighty Reserve Pinot Noir 2007 to all members of our Mailing list.

Have a wonderful Easter, warm regards,

Daniel & Ursula Schwarzenbach

So Daniel and his Team have been busy mowing, trimming the canopy and fine-tuning crop-load and exposure to sun.  Now the vineyard looks spick and span – healthier than ever and is ready for the protective bird netting.

It’s the last major job of the season and we will all take a well-deserved break before the busy harvest period starts at the end of March – all that’s left to do now is praying for fine and dry weather right up to harvest!

Daniel’s winemaking background with aromatic producers Hirsch in Austria, Engelhof in Germany, Zind-Humbrecht in Alsace and Fromm in Switzerland (where he met the elegant and ever-smiling Ursula) has no doubt given the Blackenbrook wines an edge.[...]

A firm and tightly bound wine, this has a steely edge to the crisp and minerally expression of florals and clear spice notes. The wine has a fresh delicacy and possesses the tell-tale hint of bitterness of stonefruit kernels on the finish which only Gewürztraminer shows.

Read complete review here.