Winesale CEO Grant Archibald and General Manager Michael Mebus with this years winning art award : Breathe by Belinda Griffiths

The winner of the $10,000 Winesale.co.nz Wine Label Art Award 2011 is Auckland artist Belinda Griffiths. The Award was announced last night at the 2011 New Zealand Art Show’s Gala Evening attended by over 1,200 people.

Yesterday, Winesale.co.nz representatives viewed some 3,000 artworks by 675 artists before choosing to award this year’s Wine Label Art Award to Belinda for her painting ‘Breathe’.

Belinda has exhibited previously at the New Zealand Art Show and at the Seed Gallery in Newmarket.She works primarily in acrylic on canvas and hand pulled monoprints. Her works concentrate largely on the expressive qualities of mark-making and the conveying of emotion through the human form.

The Winesale.co.nz Wine Label Award is open to any artist whose work is selected for exhibition at the New Zealand Art Show. Winesale.co.nz’s Michael Mebus created the award concept. Michael is a Wairarapa winemaker, an art collector, and General Manager of Winesale.co.nz.

Michael Mebus said, “Belinda’s ‘Breathe’ will feature on the label of two wines, a Martinborough Pinot Noir and a Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc. Five thousand bottles of each varietal will be produced in time for Christmas and be named the ‘Griffiths’ Wine Series.”

The ‘Griffiths’ Series wines will be sold online by Winesale.co.nz and the New Zealand Art Show website, and be available at the Museum Hotel’s Hippopotamus restaurant.

This prestigious Award aims to promote the work of emerging New Zealand artists, provide national recognition for the winning artist and highlight the relationship between fine wine and fine art. Last year’s winner was Seatoun artist Richard Thurston who provided the artwork for the ‘Thurston Series’ wines.

Art and wine have a long association. Since 1924, Chateau Mouton Rothschild has commissioned a contemporary artist to create an original work to illustrate its label. Artists commissioned have included Salvador Dali 1958, Henry Moore 1964, Joan Miro 1969, Marc Chagall 1970, Pablo Picasso 1973 and Andy Warhol 1975.

The Winesale.co.nz Wine Label Award builds on this association between wine and art, but aims to assist an emerging New Zealand artist rather than reward an established name.

Michael Mebus said, “We salute Belinda, making great wine takes time and passion, just like great art. This Award is a celebration of the natural association between art and wine, and Winesale.co.nz is pleased to be able to sponsor this Award. We are committed to support the New Zealand Art Show and, through the Wine Label Award, helping this country’s emerging artists develop their art and careers.”

First, a note to all you wine lovers on the Mainland.  Where were you???  I know there are more wine consumers here on the South Island because Peter and Andrea would be starving if they relied on my wine purchasing habits to stay in business.  There were wine reviewers from up north who didn’t even start writing reviews until February and they were on this trip.  It’s not hard.  Really.  You don’t have to write technical mumbo-jumbo like I do.  All you need to do is describe your experience with the wine – the occasion, the meal, what you liked about it.  That’s it.  And the Winesale staff indicated that there would be additional trips and prizes for wine reviewers in the future.  They’re also gearing up to monitor participation in the community, so give those reviews the “thumbs up” if they’ve helped you with your purchasing decisions – your feedback might help boost you into the top 10 next time around.  So, what are you waiting for?  Start writing!!  You could be involved in the next trip featuring great food, fabulous wines, good company, and luxurious accommodation.  What more could you ask for?

After our arrival at the airport, we were transported to the main Winesale offices and warehouse for a champagne reception (No. 1 Family Estate), brief tour, and Q&A session with Michael Mebus and Grant Archibald.  Then it was off to Martinborough.  Once checked into our rather sumptuous lodgings at the Parehua Estate (complete with spa tub and kitchen facilities), we headed into town for a multi-course meal with a large selection of wines including Lammastide sparkling, Mebus Pinot Gris, Kea Point Riesling, Dusty Road and Alana Pinot Noir.  There were rumours of a Sauvignon Blanc at the other end of the table, but we had our glasses full enough with the selections listed above.

Clive Paton (right) gives the crew the down low on his fabulous wines at the beautiful Ata Rangi Vineyard.

Saturday started with a lovely continental breakfast including fresh-baked croissants.  We had been warned to eat lightly as both lunch and dinner were going to be huge.  Breakfast was followed by a trip out to Ata Rangi for a private tasting with winery founder Clive Paton, where we sampled the majority of their Spring 2010 Release wines.  I would personally recommend the 2010 Sauvignon Blanc, which had some nutty overtones with a touch of vanilla, and opened up to express some lovely apricot on the nose.  This is a full-bodied wine with a great long finish that should pair nicely with cheese, light cream sauces, and heavier fish.  If you feel like a splurge, you can’t go wrong with the 2009 Pinot Noir, which has “5-15 years of cellaring potential”.  It’s a lovely wine, but I’d store it for a while to allow all of the components to blend.  It’ll be worth it.

After Ata Rangi, it was off to Gladstone Winery for a lovely outdoor lunch and (you guessed it) more wine.   We sampled their Riesling (honey tones, lemon/lime, a bit of minerality – good acid on the palate), Sauvignon Blanc (not too grassy, crisp with good acid that stood up well to our lunch of Balsamic Lemon Chicken), and Pinot Noir (2009) (still a bit young, firm tannic structure – will balance out with a bit of aging).

Lunch at Gladstone Vineyard.

Our next stop was Urlar Winery (where they were in the thick of harvest), where we chatted with founder/owner Angus Thomson.  He explained their dedication to organic farming practices, as well as the different harvesting methods for the Pinot Noir and Sauvignon Blanc that were both currently coming off the vines.  The Pinot Noir was being hand-picked, and the big harvester was in action in the Sauvignon rows – my partner Bill was thrilled that he had the opportunity to climb up on the big machinery and see how the harvester worked.  We also tried some of the grapes to get an idea of what flavours they start out with.  We sampled a Sauvignon Blanc (amazing depth, character, and body) as well as a Pinot Noir (incredibly complex but should get even better with a bit of age to allow better integration).  Grab some if you can, releases are limited.

Angus Thomson (left) from Urlar takes us over his Pinot Noir harvest.

There was a brief detour to Mebus Estate for some corks (ask Westie Wino about his cork project if you get a chance) and then back to our lodgings for a bit of a break before the much-anticipated winemaker’s dinner, prepared and hosted by the wonderful folks at Parehua Lodge.  Winemaker Larry McKenna (Escarpment Vineyard) was on hand to discuss the wines.  Chef Kent Baddeley prepared an adventurous multi-course meal which was paired with Palliser sparkling, Te Hera Riesling, Johner Chardonnay, Cabbage Tree Pinot Noir, and Johner Noble Syrah.  I like to try each wine with as many of the meal items as possible, and was really impressed with the versatility of the Riesling.  It was paired with and complimented the initial course (escargot) wonderfully, but also worked really well with the prawn/fish dish, and even the hare with plum sauce!  A special treat was the Botrytis Syrah, a unique and unusual dessert wine.  I’ve stocked some of these in my personal cellar.

Sunday morning was the hugely anticipated Winesale tasting – 17 of the current wines available on the web site were poured for us.  We were encouraged to offer feedback on

No better way to start a Sunday morning!

these wines and make our own tasting notes.  It was great to sample some of the wines and/or labels that I had not managed to get around to trying yet.  The Lammastide Pinot Noir is just starting to develop into something truly interesting with chocolate and pepper tones.  The Westbrook 2008 Waimauku Estate Chardonnay really stood out for me – this is a big buttery Chard with good spiciness and great balance.  I also really enjoyed the Beach House Gimblet Gravels 2009 Reserve Merlot, which surprised me – this is a BIG wine for a merlot with good tannic structure and a great long finish.  I’ll be getting some of these wines again soon.

It was really fun getting to know the other Winesale reviewers – it’s a diverse group of really interesting folks – as well as some of the Winesale staff.  Overall, it was a spectacular trip.  The folks at Winesale are just getting started, so if you’d like to be in on the next great wine adventure, start writing those reviews.  Just don’t bump me out of the running – I certainly don’t want to miss the next great adventure!

Click here to read Linda’s fabulous wine reviews. If you want to come on our next Wine Reviewer weekend get reviewing and cement your place in the Top Ten! Click here for more details.

Winemakers are artists, they work with a liquid medium and have immense pride in their creations. They are insecure, always worried and always passionate. At Winesale.co.nz we work with so many grape artists already we felt we should extend our support to the other arts. We found a brilliant organization called The New Zealand Art Show. Their sole objective is to support up and coming artists by displaying and selling their works on their behalf.

We also thought we could complete this great marriage of wine and art by selecting a talented artist and commissioning two paintings to be made into labels for two great wines.  We selected a young artist by the name of Richard Thurston. His unique style of painting, simple creativity yet visually stimulating, impressed on us that he will go far in the art world.

The good news is you will be able to take part in his journey to success. We will be releasing 500 cases of Sauvignon Blanc and 500 of Pinot Noir with his works made into labels. The wines will be released in time for Christmas. $1 from every bottle sold will go to the artist, as well as a dollar to the New Zealand Art Show. Contact us if you would like to have a bottle of history in the making. Now without further delay – the winner Richard Thurston:

Richard Thurston with Winesale.co.nz CEO Grant Archibald

An introduction is needed here. My name is Michael Mebus. I am the new General manager of Winesale.co.nz.  Amongst my many tasks, I have to find you the best wine deals available from New Zealand as well as from overseas and besides that to be informative. So this is my first ever blog.

I am from Dutch decent  and on the day I am writing this we have lost the world cup final in South Africa to Spain. Now what has this to do with winesale.co.nz ? Well strangely enough a lot. All countries mentioned have been pivotal in many ways for the wine industry. Let me clarify:

The Dutch were a seafaring nation many centuries ago. On these voyages they needed as much food as possible but above all produce that could not spoil. As you all know alcohol keeps wine however in those days wines were lower in alcohol so the Dutch commissioned the Bordeaux wineries to leave the grapes hanging on the vines longer to increase the sugar content and as a result have higher alcohol levels. Secondly they added Sulphur Dioxide to the wines. We are of course talking about parts per million. Nowadays we still produce wines in the same way. Look on the back-label and you will find “contains preservatives 220”.

The problem the sailors faced was once rounding the horn of Africa most of the supplies were drunk. So they decided to plant vineyards in southern Africa to replenish the wines for the next leg of the Journey to the East Indies. The Spanish of course thought this was a brilliant plan and copied the same model, which is why around the world we see countries with vineyards that were introduced there by European colonists.

To complete this little bit of History on such a black day in the History of the Netherlands: Our first shipment of Spanish wines are heading towards our shores and we will keep you updated on when it will arrive. In the meantime try our South American wines. Like the Dutch, we have French wines arriving in the next 8 weeks. Bordeaux, Burgundian and beautiful Rhone wines. We have every intention to spoil you for choice. But let us not forget all the beautiful New Zealand wines. What great offers we have!!

Cheers and Enjoy- Michael

We’re at:

The Great Taste Food Show in Whangarei to be held on Saturday between 9 and 5.30 at the Forum North Exhibition Centre

The Waikato Home and Garden Show on all weekend at the Claudelands Event Centre

The Wellington Wedding Show between 10 and 3 at the Overseas Terminal Function Centre

Here we are at the awesome Speakeasy Wine and Food Festival held last weekend in Petone:

Winesale.co.nz at the Speakeasy Wine and Food Festival in Petone

At Winesale.co.nz we think a wine can have all the awards or star ratings in the world, but what really matters is whether or not the customer comes back for more.  After all – buying the same wine a second time is the ultimate accolade any wine can earn from a consumer.  It’s the consumer saying “I have shelled out my hard-earned cash for this wine and it has delivered on its promise and I am going to enjoy buying this wine again!”

With this in mind we have created the concept of Return Trips to let you know exactly how many times our customers have been excited enough by our wines to buy them a second time. Wines listed on Winesale.co.nz now have a Return Trips badge giving you all the information you need to make an informed choice about your wine.

At the bottom of each wine description you might see something like:

Return Trips: This wine has been repeat purchased 100 times by 70 customers!

This means that the wine you are looking at has been thought so good by 70 customers that they just had to buy it a second time. In fact of those 70 people who purchased it more than once, some of them have purchased it 3, or 4, or maybe even 5 times. Hence the 100 repeat purchases. Now… this could mean that 40 of the 70 people bought the wine twice and 30 bought it three times, or it could mean that 69 people bought the wine  twice and 1 person bought the wine 32 different times!

Anyway you get the picture! The wine is loved so much that at least 70 people took another trip with it – a Return Trip! 

Just one more way that Winesale.co.nz is making the wine buying process easy for you!

It should be noted that Return Trips do not measure the volume of wine which is sold. For example you may buy one bottle of the same wine three weeks in a row and this would count as two return trips. Likewise if you bought a case of the same wine three weeks in a row this would also count as two return trips.

Also note:
Only wines that have been repeat purchased 5 times or more will display the Return Trips badge. Wines without the Return Trips badge may be new listings. Return Trips statistics also apply to multiple vintages of the same wine. So if 50 people have taken Return Trips with the 2008 vintage and 5 with the 2009 vintage then the Return Trips for the 2009 vintage will show 55 .

We want your vote! If you are one of the thousands of New Zealanders who visit us every week looking for amazing wine bargains and you think Winesale.co.nz is the best shopping site in New Zealand then vote for us in the Netguide Web Awards – New Zealand’s most prestigious publicly selected web awards.

Click here to cast your vote. Vote for us in any category you like but especially in Best Online Shopping Site and Best New Launch, Relaunch or Innovation Site.

Voting closes 22nd of June so don’t delay – get your friends, family members and pets to vote for Winesale.co.nz!

Thanks and drink great wine!

• You can now click directly through from our email to a secure order form on our website which contain the same wines which are in your email.
• Once you have have registered to order off our website for the first time you never have to enter your delivery details or your credit card details (again). This will really speed up your ordering off our emails going forward.
• If you want to know more about any of our wines you can now click directly through from your email to a more detailed description (and pictures) on our website.

New Home Page

We have also made some improvements to our home page today. Some of the changes you might notice are:

• We have made it easier for new visitors to the site to sign up to our newsletter directly from the home page.
• We have also made it easier to see four of our very best daily deals directly on the homepage.
• There is a new Start Shopping section which gives vistors the opportunity to jump quickly to detailed sub-category searches with just one click.
• There is a cool new Top 10 list which shows the top 10 sellers on the website over the last 24 hours. This is updated in real time so visitors will be able to see what bargains our customers are finding on the site every day.

We hope you like our new home page and emails. If you have any comments about either of these things please feel free to leave a comment on this blog. We always love to get feedback from our customers.

Cheers and have fun

The team at Winesale.co.nz

Why have we done this?

Lately we have been finding it very difficult to get our emails through some Spam Filters. In particular we have been having trouble with the Yahoo/Xtra Spam Filter.  This is despite all our newsletter recipients being legitimate subscribers who have asked to receive our email.

Since our twice weekly deal sheet is kind of central to what we do here and since Yahoo/Xtra email addresses account for around one third of our email list, we decided to get some advice about how we could improve our situation. Without getting into the complications of the Yahoo/Xtra Spam Filter and why it is delivering mail from legitimate senders to the Spam folder, we can say that one of the pieces of advice we received was to tidy up our email addresses. Since we are now focusing on the www.winesale.co.nz domain to transact our business we decided to move all the emails to this domain as well.

I’m a Yahoo/Xtra email user. How can I always ensure I get your emails in the future?

If you’re a Yahoo/Xtra email user you can make some changes on your Yahoo/Xtra webmail account which will ensure you always get our email. (Note this has to be done in Webmail, it can’t be done on you computer using a program like Outlook.)

First of all check your SPAM folder for our messages:

1. Log in to Yahoo!Xtra Mail Account
2. Open the Spam folder by clicking it in the folder list on the left of the page
3. Check Spam messages
4. Click on any messages you find from Corporate Direct/Winesale
5. Click the Not Spam button along the top of the window.

Secondly if you want to ensure messages from Corporate Direct never get sent to your SPAM folder then add us to your webmail contacts:

1. Find any message from us.
2. Next to the email address in the reading pane you will see an Add icon with a little plus sign. Click on this and click “Save”.
Or
1. Click Contacts in the folder list along the left side of your Yahoo! Mail page
2. Your Contacts open as a tab in the main window
3. Below the word Contacts on the actual tab, notice the Rolodex-card icon with a plus sign next to the words Add Contact.  When you move the mouse here, it becomes a button, and when you click it, a Contact Properties window opens where you can enter our email address. Our email address will depend on which region you live in. Click here to see the latest list.
4. Click OK when you’re finished.

Lastly please never label an email from us as Spam!

If you are tired of hearing from us, all of our emails contain a very easy to follow unsubscribe link which will have you off our list in a flash!

And our favourite question of the day:  Where can I buy these great wines? Why right here at Winesale.co.nz of course and thanks for asking!