Treat your Mum

To help you choose the perfect gift, we will have our delicious Riesling 2007 from the Library Stock, the newly released Pinot Gris 2009, our ever-so-popular Chardonnay 2008 and the full-bodied Montepulciano 2008 open for tasting.

The tasting is free and our wines will be offered at special prices for the day.

Go into the draw to win a gift-pack with two of our top-shelf wines if you buy two or more Blackenbrook bottles on the day!

Saturday, 8 May 2010, 11am – 2pm

Casa del Vino

214 Hary Street,  Nelson

For more information please click here.

For more info visit the  Festival Web Site

The Tasting will be free and our wines will be sold at attractive special prices.

For every 2 bottles of Blackenbrook wine purchased on the day you can go into the draw to win a bottle of our very first Pinot Gris, vintage 2004 which is drinking beautifully at the moment and 1 bottle of our Trophy-winning Reserve Pinot Gris 2008. Both wines have sold out a long time ago, so make the most of this fantastic opportunity!

Regional Wines and Spirits

15 Ellice Street

Mount Victoria 6011

Wellington

Phone (04) 385 6952

For more information please click here.

We are proud to see our gold medal-winning Pinot Gris 2008, the delicate Gewurztraminer 2008 and the creamy-soft Chardonnay 2008 in her line-up for the night.

Wednesday, 24 February, 6.30pm

Cableways Liquorland

Cnr Kaikorai Valley Rd & Mellor St, Dundedin

For further information please click here.

Sunday, 21 February 2010, 11am – 6pm
Brightwater Wine & Food Festival

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!

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. [...]

Read the entire article here.

Saturday 6 February 2010
Nelson Aromatic Symposium 2010
Upper Moutere Community Centre

www.wineart.co.nz

150 delegates, largely international and NZ wine press and trade, plus a sprinkling of winemakers, will join Mosel superstar Ernst Loosen, (Dr Loosen Estate) and other international commentators in an exploration of the beauty and balance of Riesling and Gewürztraminer from around the world. Great wines, huge experience, stimulating discussion.

Ernst will also join with local winemakers in a technical workshop the following morning. The Symposium takes place on Saturday 6th February, and is flanked by dinners featuring Nelson’s exceptional regional produce and wines. A lovely seafood lunch and a BBQ dinner at picturesque Neudorf Vineyards add to the relaxed nature of the day, when many international and national wine media, trade, makers and enthusiasts will be enjoying sipping a refreshing glass of Riesling in the Nelson summer sun
Places are limited and likely to sell out quickly.
Contact info@wineart.co.nz for more details.

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.

Read the entire article here.

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.