The 2005 Kaipara Estate Cabernet Sauvignon Merlot is here! This is very much a fragrant wine with brambly, spicy flavours showing good complexity. Great for these cooler winter nights, paired with a casserole, beef or lamb.

Realising a great passion for wine and the land Brandon Orr-Walker and Judy McIntosh were drawn to the Kaipara district, the birth place of New Zealand's first commercial vineyard in the 1860's. After extensive searching for a suitable site through the lower, central and northerly reaches of the Kaipara, they settled on a warm hillside site in the Waioneke valley mid way up South Head peninsula.

Like many artisan producers Brandon and Judy have proper 'day' jobs. He is a surgeon and she an actress but wine is their passion. Whilst working as at Blenheim Hospital in 1990 Brandon befriended Barbara and Ross Lawson of Lawson's Dry Hills, who were then contract grape growers. They let him have some grapes which he hand-harvested, foot-pressed and cool-fermented in his refrigerator, and produced his first drops of wine. Brandon was hooked - and since then he has been creating wines, especially bordeaux style reds, from their vineyard in Kaipara. The 2005 Cabernet Sauvignon Merlot highlights their success.