Deutz Marlborough Cuvee marries the best New Zealand grapes with traditional French Champagne-making techniques establishing a benchmark for New Zealand wine excellence. This is a fabulous wine, with a beautiful body balanced between the gentle sweetness of fresh Pinot Noir fruit and the immense strength of toasty yeast. Laid upon a feather bed of steady, fine mousse, and leaving a long and lingering aftertaste, Brut offers a rendezvous to remember.

Excellent parcels of Pinot fruit, displaying nice smatterings of strawberry and raspberry notes. Brioche and shortcake characters reflect an easy yeastiness that adds delight.

The Devil's Staircase takes the willing down into the realm of decadence and bacchanalian delights. Here everything is pleasure, spiced up with a dash of naughtiness. The unrelenting environment tortures the vines whose twisted limbs produce wine worthy of absolution. These wines are sinfully succulent and devilishly good.

A year of full paradoxes for winemaking. 2012 gave birth to a great vintage, surmounting multiple challenges. Nature proved unpredictable and implacable as a series of climate events descended upon the vineyards: frost in the winter and spring, torrential rains, hailstorms and cold spells while the vines were flowering, plus intense heat waves over the summer. A warm and dry climate alleviated any concerns as to the health of grapes, favouring the maturation of the fruit. The beginning of the harvest stretched from September 10 to 26, depending on the parcels. Tasting the grapes revealed tremendous promise, with a balance between freshness and generosity.

The Gisborne grapes (Pinot Noir and Chardonnay) deliver vibrant aromas and flavours displaying apple and melon characters, a fine mousse, a lingering, dry finish and fine acidity.

The nose is bursting with melons, peach and ripe tropical and citrus fruits, followed by a generous fruit-driven palate. Classic Chardonnay roundness, giving a mouth-filling finish.

Red cherry, plum and spice, fruity and smooth. Great with red meats.

Pinot Noir; notoriously difficult to cultivate, but with luck, love & perfect conditions, she will reward you with the performance of a life time - a minx & a devil in disguise, a Fickle Mistress. Central Otago's cool climate consistently produces exceptional red fruit flavours of cherry, raspberry and redcurrant, but with concentration and length to match. This wine is layered with black and red berry fruits, complemented by blossoming aromas of dark plum.

Fine example of a Marlborough Chardonnay from the team at Fickle Mistress.

Pinot Noir is fickle but she is charming, she is temperamental but bewitching. She is the Fickle Mistress.

A classic zesty Marlborough Sauvignon from the Fickle Mistress team.

Pinot Noir is fickle but she is charming, she is temperamental but bewitching. She is the Fickle Mistress.