When ripe Pinot Gris grapes have an attractive pale red tinge. The fruit is delicate requiring careful handling post harvest to maintain colour and flavours.
The 1996 Huntaway Reserve Pinot Gris was fermented then allowed to develop for 5 months on it's fine yeast lees. This has resulted in a wine with an attractive bouquet of spicy apple with a hint of peach and a bready complexity. The palate is delicate and warm with a soft spicy aftertaste.

Selected from the best Chardonnay vineyards in arguably the best Chardonnay region in New Zealand. The grapes used to make this wine were harvested at optimum maturity. The fruit is full flavoured with an ideal sugar balance and has produced a wine that is stunningly rich Chardonnay, typical of Gisborne's best.
Malolactic fermentation and eight months in new and one year old French oak has complemented the rich fruit characters and resulted in a truly luscious but elegant wine.
The bouquet is complex with subtle tropical fruit, almond, toast and vanilla. The palate is full flavoured and warm, with a lingering toasty finish.

Winner of a Gold Medal at the 1995 Air New Zealand National Wine Competition

Two different clones of Pinot Noir were used to make this wine, using a ratio of 95% and 5% to give the ideal combination of body and flavours.
The grapes were hand picked, which is important for such a delicate grape of such small quantities. All grapes were harvested on one day, with a brix level of 23. The grape pickers were carefully briefed and only perfect grapes were harvested.
The grapes were fermented over three weeks with indigenous wild yeasts from the vineyard. The vats were plunged by foot, with the skins pushed under, four or five times a day. This is a very gentle way to crush grapes. A percentage of the grapes were left as whole bunches in the bottom of the fermenter to add complexity with the rest of the fruit crushed on top.
The juice was left on the skins for three weeks and then is pressed and placed into barrels for 18 months. The barrels used were carefully selected Burgundy barrels, with only 15% new oak, to ensure oak did not dominate the wine. Finally the wine was egg-fined before bottling with no filtration.
The wine has a gamey, earthy fruit flavour on the nose, with good colour, a long, soft palate structure and will benefit from decanting one to two hours prior to serving.

Review: Michael Cooper's Buyer's Guide to NZ WInes *****
I've no reservation at all about this powerful wine - it's a five star debut! Grown in Marlborough and the region's finest Pinto Noir to date - the 1992 vintage is very generous, fleshy and supple red with lifted, cherryish, charred-oak aromas and a meaty, complex palate.

Review: Wine Star, August 1995 *****
This is New Zealand Pinot Noir at it's mushroomy, multifaceted best. The colour is deep and maturing; the bouquet fragrant, with charred-oak aromas. The palate is mouth-filling, very rich and complex, with an exciting array of cherry/plum/oak flavours, firm but supple tannins and a long, complex finish.

This wine is made from an early ripening variety of the Muscat grape reknown for its intense fruit characters. The lightly pressed grape juice was freeze-concentrated to further intensify the fruit flavours, fermented under controlled temperatures and bottled immediately to capture the natural mouth-watering perfume of the Muscat grape. This wine is deliciously sweet and balanced with lime, apple and hints of floral complexity.

Review: Keith Stewart, NZ Listener, August 1995
The only way you could get the fresh taste of Muscat in a purer form would be intravenously. It smells as fresh and grapey as it tastes, and it tastes so sweet and crisp that the lack of pips is a surprise. If you don't like this. you don't like grapes, and you definitely don't like Muscat, but if you do, there is no substitutes.

Review: Stanley Harris, federation of Wine & Food Societies of NZ, August 1996
Gisborne Muscat is a vivid reminder (if needed) of the luscious vinous joy which the variety can deliver, the fragrant bouquet is almost an aphrodisiac itself. With an impressive intensity of gorgeously exotic complex flavours, accentuated by freeze-concentration of the grape juice, it was fermented to a residual sugar of 84gms/lt and bottled immediately to capture the natural essence of the grape - which has been perfectly achieved. The ample clean, lime like acid superbly balances the sweetness, leaving the palate clean and ready for more!

Review: Danny Schuster, The Christchurch Press, December 1996
Bright straw colour, floral/aromatic muscat bouquet with grapey/tropical flavours, balanced acidity and light body.

Review: Charmain Smith, Otago Daily Times, September 1996
Corbans Estate Gisborne Muscat has masses of beautifully lifted, zesty, floral fruity - peaches, melon, paw-paw and other tropical fruit - luscious sweetness and a clean, bright finish. Absolutely delicious.