Hi from Jeff, 

Several weeks ago myself and Chris Williams, our Senior Wine Buyer, flew to Queenstown and spent several days visiting winemakers at a few of Otago’s finest producers. We tasted current releases and wines in tank/barrel from both the 2009 and 2010 vintages. I can tell you firsthand wine lovers have plenty of excitement ahead from both of these vintages.  

It was incredibly valuable spending time with the winemakers and reacquainting ourselves with their vineyards, winemaking philosophies and future direction; every visit was special in its own right. None more so than the few hours we spent with Mike Herrick at Mt Difficulty wines, a producer of such incredible consistency that one can sometimes become a bit blasé which we had done so to a degree. 

We tasted through all of the current releases and also tasted numerous tank and barrel samples from 2009/2010 vintages; we categorised every wine between very good to outstanding with more than 50% falling into the outstanding category. Little wonder Mt Difficulty was recently included in Decanter Magazines “Top 20 NZ Wineries” (the most respected UK wine publication and among the world’s “Top 3” most authoritative wine guides).   

If you’re a Mt Difficulty follower then you’ll be keen to take advantage of these fabulous prices on this broad selection; if you, like us, have let them fly under your radar for a while then you’d be crazy not to reacquaint yourself with their beautiful wines while we have them all on special. Cheers Jeff

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