One of the most exciting new wines to be released in Nelson for some time is a variety new to this region, Muscat. Blackenbrook Vineyards planted what they believe to be the first Muscat vines in the South Island a few years ago and this first release is stunning.

As the Nelson region is considered a cool climate region for grape growing, planting the vines was very much experimental, but the results have been outstanding and reinforce this region’s ability to extract wonderful flavours from aromatic wine varieties.

This is a highly aromatic wine, bursting with rich, floral and spicy turkish delight and orange blossom aromas that are reflected in the sweet, intense flavours.

Delightfully balanced with soft minerality and tantalising ginger spice flavours in the very long finish with ripe acidity that leaves your mouth watering for more of this luscious delight.

I will be drinking plenty of this fantastic wine in the coming summer months.

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The Nelson Region is a strong silent type. Not as flamboyant as Central Otago and dwarfed in size by its neighbour, Marlborough. Perhaps it’s because every Nelson winery is family owned and they simply go about making good wines. And there’s no doubt Nelson produces some of the country’s most irresistible and gratifying wines.

As we embrace and celebrate regionality, it is fitting to pay more attention to this little region renowned for gloriously perfumed aromatics and sumptuously delicious Burgundy varieties.

I love the precision and clarity of flavours from the Plains where some of the most intensely flavoured Sauvignon Blanc and Riesling come from. Yet I equally adore the more textural wines from the Hills.

Seifried Estate’s Gewürztraminers and Rieslings are meltingly delicious, and so are Blackenbrook’s Aromatics, which show lovely perfume and richly textured mouthfeel. Then there’s the indigenous yeasts and barrel-fermented style of Neudorf Moutere Pinot Gris which display astonishing complexity and silkiness.

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The tour started at Richmond Plains with a fantastic tasting of this year’s tank samples and bottled Blanc de Noir.

It was back in the van at 11am and off to Blackenbrook Wines at Tasman, where co-owner and winemaker Daniel Schwarzenbach showed us around, talked about how he makes wine and let my bunch of wine lovers taste some of his product, comparing finished wines with new-season tank samples.

The group were astounded at Daniel’s passion and dedication to quality in everything he does. For me, Blackenbrook’s 2008 Reserve Gewurztraminer was the best match with the still-warm home-baked bread Ursula Schwarzenbach produced for us.

The next stop was lunch with Tim and Judy Finn at Neudorf Vineyard, followed by a comprehensive winery tour with Chris Seifried at Seifried Estate.

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He was impressed with Nelson‘s gorgeous backdrop, the warm hospitality he experienced at Warwick House and the unforgettable dinner at Hopgoods Restaurant.  He chose wines from Blackenbrook, Seifried and Neudorf vineyards, matching Kevin Hopgood’s menu perfectly.

Read the entire travel review here.

It looked like an extremely well thought out winery that Daniel could run mostly on his own with just one other person to help him in peak times.

…and the resulting Gewurztraminer 2008, Pinot Gris 2009 and Blackenbrook Riesling 2007:

Wow – three awesome aromatic styles in a row but there was more to come.

Blackenbrook Chardonnay 2008 is creamy and buttery with a touch of pineapple and tropical guava and a savoury backbone.  I wrote ‘Good Chard!’ and noted it was rather easy drinking.

Blackenbrook Montepulciano 2008 is vivid in colour and the viscous texture is layered with tannins. A floral wine with hints of violets, briar rose hips and an earthy brambly depth, it has  creamy oak with a savoury finish.

Thank you, Sue – hope your MG made it back to Auckland safely and please call in again on your next road-trip!

Read Sue Courtney’s entire article here.

He was blown away by the quality of the new juices at Neudorf, Rimu Grove, Seifried Estate and here at Blackenbrook:

I can tell you that this year, I have tasted some of the most flavoursome juice I have ever tasted from Nelson.

Not only were the harvested grapes in pristine condition, but they were packed with incredibly pure varietal flavours.

We also love his comment on his visit to our winery:

Daniel Schwarzenbach from Blackenbrook Vineyards had a smile from ear to ear as he proudly let me taste juice that had such delightful balance and flavour purity that you could almost bottle it now as grape juice – something I would not normally be saying about wine grape juice.

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The current cool nights and hot days favour aromatic varieties and, if the weather held, “it should be a dream harvest“, said Daniel Schwarzenbach of Blackenbrook Vineyard in Tasman.

The flavours are there. We had a six-degree low last night and about a 26C high today, and that’s ideal for flavour production.

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When I met Ursula in Switzerland 14 years ago we talked about my ambition to plant my own vineyard, build a winery and market the wine under my own label. I could see her doubts. [...]  I managed to convince Ursula to marry me and come to New Zealand, where I had been raised from the age of nine. [...]

We now own and run our family vineyard, Blackenbrook, in Nelson and raise our two kids out in the country – a wonderful lifestyle many can only dream about. [...]

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Michael Brown, Chairman of Nelson WineArt says:

Nelson’s wine industry needed a calling card, and so around five years ago WineArt began marketing Nelson as the home of New Zealand’s finest aromatic wines.  [...]  The symposium is incredibly important.  It’s an opportunity for the region to attract some really important media and international winemakers who will take the story of Nelson aromatics to wherever they come from.

Daniel Schwarzenbach, the owner and winemaker of Tasman’s Blackenbrook Vineyard, is chairing the symposium’s tasting panel of gewurtztraminer, an honour he says he is “quite chuffed about” given how many excellent gewurtztraminers are made in Nelson.

He is a fan of the aromatics, saying his favourite to grow and work with is pinot gris, followed closely by gewurztraminer and then riesling.

But he prefers to call them the Alsatian varieties, as their traditional home has been in Alsace.

“I’m passionate about Alsace and the Alsatian people,” says the man who worked with Olivier Humbrecht – owner and winemaker of Domaine Zind-Humbrecht, regarded by many as the best winery in Alsace.

Mr Schwarzenbach speaks of how versatile gewurztraminer is, matching well with Asian flavours, or, as is done in Alsace, drunk cold with sauerkraut or spicy sausage.

As he sips his 2008 Nelson gewurztraminer at his gravity-fed winery on Baldwin Rd, he says he loves the “spicy, gingery, rose petal, lychee” flavours of the wine.

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Pinot gris is now New Zealand’s third most widely planted white-wine variety, trailing only sauvignon blanc and chardonnay. Exports have risen seventeen-fold over the past five years and now exceed 200,000 cases.

With pinot gris – as with sauvignon blanc, pinot noir and merlot – winemakers have discovered a classic variety that, overall, performs better here than in Australia.

Winestate magazine’s Wine of the Year Awards bring together leading wines from both sides of the Tasman. Spy Valley Marlborough Pinot Gris 2009 won the 2009 trophy for champion pinot gris, followed by Gibbston Valley Central Otago Pinot Gris 2008 and Blackenbrook Nelson Pinot Gris 2008.

Low-vigour soils are ideal since small crops are needed to build the concentrated, ripe stonefruit and spice flavours of fine pinot gris.

Read the entire article here.