A Trip to New Zealand

Mar 28, 2026

by Philip Amps

15 hours to Singapore and then 13 hours to Christchurch it is a long haul to get to New Zealand, but it is worth it when you get there. Even unpaved roads without Pot Holes!

We first headed up to Nelson to park up the campervan close to the coast and onto mountain bikes. We cycled up into the Moutere hills to the Heaphy Winery. When we visited two years ago the winery had come under new ownership and a new winemaking team. They had been making changes to the vineyards and how they operated in the winery. Some good Rieslings, but all the other wines needed work. In the two years the team have made great strides forward, with three of the wines being outstanding and will now be available in the shops and online.

Riesling Heaphy 2024,lively, zesty, and great drinkability. A wine for the patio or with Charcuterie etc. [Buy Here]

Riesling Moutere 2023, with time spent in Concrete Egg for fermentation and post fermentation, it gives the wine extra texture and mouthfeel. Baked lemons, complex and a never-ending finish, bloody delicious. [Buy Here]

Chardonnay Moutere 2024, this is the most improved wine in the range, almost unrecognizable from two years ago. Rich and opulent, perfectly balanced with delicious fruit, very, very drinkable, this is going to be hugely popular. [Buy Here].

At the Heaphy cellar door they have a fabulous wood fired pizza oven and the pizzas and salads are not to be missed!

At Marlborough we visited our good friends at Lawson’s Dry Hills, we met up with Belinda and Marcus, the winemaker to taste their current vintages. Their Sauvignon Blanc remains a benchmark for how Marlborough SB should taste, but for me the excitement is in the other varieties that they produce. [See full range].

We had a reminder of how the NZ climate is so important to the wines they produce. January is their summer, yet we regularly woke up in the morning with the outside temperature 3 -8 degrees C, by the end of the day we were at 30 degrees C. So they have the warmth but also the cool nights to keep the acidity within the grapes. Marcus and Belinda showed us how the new viticulturist is working in the vineyards planting between the rows of vines the plants that will add nitrogen and potassium, or whatever the soil requires to be healthy. Healthy soil means healthy grapes and better-quality wines.

Marcus is a passionate winemaker, never sitting back, always looking to make a better wine. The Estate chardonnay is his latest project and boy has he done a good job. An unoaked chardonnay, that is full, yet clean and precise with fabulous fruit. This will be landing in June 2026. The 2023 vintage of the Reserve Pinot Noir [Buy Here] and Pioneer Pinot Noir [Buy Here] are now available. Put them up against anything from Burgundy and you will see what I mean when I say they are classy wines!

In Central Otago we visited Tim, Nikki and Mathew Kerruish. When I first visited here the vines were there and just a shed. Mathew was about knee high! 16 years on Mathew is part of the winemaking team with lots of fabulous ideas to take the wines forward. They have their house in the middle of the vines and have just finished building the winery on site, so now they are the complete Boutique producer, with total control of the wines from budding to bottling and boy the wines are good.

Chardonnay 2022 and 2023 is a relatively new wine to the range, these early vintages with young wines are fabulous. The 2022 vintage is more restrained with the 2023 more opulent. [Buy Here].

The Pinot Noir Estate 2021 [Buy Here], is all elegance and complexity with the 2021 Orchard Block [Buy Here] is similar, but more mouth filling opulence. When you taste these there is every chance you will agree with me that NZ could become more famous for Pinot Noir than it is for Sauvignon Blanc.