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Top Tastes is designed to help you find the best food and beverage venues and products; whether you want delicious fish chips, beautiful café food in a winery setting, finely crafted formal dining, food ideas, wine reviews or cocktail recipes this is your guide to the best New Zealand has to offer.

Top Tastes was created by Neil Hodgson and managed by him, he has invited other writers to contribute to the site, this means more regional information will be added as time goes by. You will find a range of opinions, reviews and recipes from people who know their stuff when it comes to food and beverage.

Only reviews written by this select group will be published on the site (you are welcome to leave comments of course) so you will be able to trust the review – no fake reviews, no ranting, just good information to help you choose great things to eat and drink as well as the best places to eat out.

THE LATEST REVIEWS

Anchorage Wines- Stripping back helps Motueka Winemakers and Growers strike gold

Following on from my previous column about how Motueka Winemakers and Growers (formerly Anchorage Wines) set about restructuring their business and vineyards they are now seeing some outstanding results from the efforts they made over the last few years. As well as refocusing the business from producing primarily wines for sale in bulk to other […]

Anchorage Wines- Stripping back helps Motueka Winemakers and Growers strike gold

Following on from my previous column about how Motueka Winemakers…

Heke Homemade Herbals

It’s been several years since I caught up with Emme Heke from…

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Anchorage Wines- Stripping back helps Motueka Winemakers and Growers strike gold

Following on from my previous column about how Motueka Winemakers…

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It’s been several years since I caught up with Emme Heke from…

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TOP WINES TASTINGS

Blackenbrook 2019 Family Reserve Nelson Pinot Noir

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Tasted by:
Date: 2021/02/27

Taste & Other Notes

I first tasted this wine several months ago not long after it was bottled and thought  it was an exceptional wine at the time, with extra time in the bottle my opinion hasn’t changed. While Pinot Noir can be light and floral this example is a delicious, powerful wine with lots of character and intrigue. From the initial intense fruit to the layers of smoky oak and juicy acidity this is a determined wine, it has presence and character.

We’ve put together a team of experts who have a passion for writing about food and beverages.