Looking Back – Forrest Wines with Carlos Rojas Stiven, March ’23

The Forrest Range
The Forrest Range

This was an evening of tasting grape varieties from around the world but produced right here in NZ.

Adding to this international flavour was our presenter Carlos, who was born in Chile and came to NZ in 2010, and now resides in Marlborough with his wife and daughters. Carlos informed us that Forrest is now second-generation owned and operated and that they loved working with many different grape varieties.

As a reminder of the wines we sampled during the evening:

  • The Doctors Riesling 2021 – German style wine
  • Forrest Albarino 2022 – Spanish/Portuguese grape variety
  • Forrest Chenin Blanc 2022 – French/now South African grape variety
  • Forrest Gruner Veltliner 2022 – Austrian grape variety
  • Tatty Bogler Pinot Noir 2020 – Burgundy French grape style
  • Forrest Lagrein 2020 – Piedmont Italy grape variety
  • Forrest Botrytised Riesling 2018Forrest has approximately 150 ha of grapes plants in Marlborough, with additional plantings in the Waitaki Valley, with the latter having limestone ground, similar to Burgundy conditions.
Visit Forrest
Visit Forrest

70% of their Sauvignon Blanc goes overseas each year, with 100 cases to Waitrose per year!

Notably, most of their Forrest Botryised Riesling, with a honey/marmalade taste – is made for and sold to Air NZ. So when COVID19 hit NZ, the unwanted stock was stocked by NZ based stockists – a bonus for the NZ public.

There were 15 orders from Club members for this tasting, evidence of just how much this tasting was enjoyed by our members.

Thank you to Carlos and Forrest Wines for your support of our club.

Top Drops under $25 – April 2019

Presenter: Joelle Thomson – Writer, author, etc

Our April tasting was a great success and certainly slightly different from other tastings, given the perspective of our presenter and her knowledge of wines in the current market.

Having someone of Joelle’s experience was certainly a coup for the club and we would like to acknowledge Regional Wines contribution in making this event happen.

The committee will be approaching Regional to see if we can re-establish some permanent benefits for club members and we will advise further if and when this is finalised.

As for the wines themselves, I have already said earlier that I really enjoyed the Montepulciano. But given the number and cross-section of orders that Joelle took away with her, it’s clear that all the wines were greatly appreciated.

Thank you, Joelle, for a very interesting tasting. Hopefully, we can arrange another tasting sometime in the future.

Wines tasted:

  • 2009 Forrest The Valleys Riesling
  • Valformosa Cava Classic Brut NV
  • 2015 Main Divide Waipara Riesling
  • 2015 Ulisse Montepulciano, Italy
  • 2015 Crater Rim Waipara Pinot Noir
  • 2016 Alary Gerbaude Cotes du Rhone
  • 2017 San Marzano Il Pumo Primitivo