It looks like you are still using an browser that is no longer supported with security updates. Some features on this site may not work including the checkout. We strongly recommend that you either update your browser or use another one such as:

Google Chrome Microsoft Edge Firefox Safari

September 6, 2011

Dinner with New Zealand Producer Michiel Eradus

Michiel Eradus from Eradus

Some wine evenings seem to fit the wines like a glove. To me the wines of Marlborough family producer Eradus are about relentless quality but practiced in an effortless, unpretentious way, with charm and a lightness of touch. Certainly the dozen Corney & Barrow customers and staff who sat down to dinner with Michiel Eradus last week at Devonshire Terrace in the City enjoyed a fabulously light-hearted yet knowledgeable evening in the company of some of the most accomplished Kiwi wines I have tasted.

Pinot Noir EradusEradus is the creation of Michiel’s parents Har and Sophie, Dutch emigrants in the early 1980s. They have twelve hectares under vine, the top sites of which are stony terraces along the Awatere river valley. The proximity of the Awatere to the ocean makes for markedly more interesting wines than the swathes of generic Marlborough produced further inland. In a word, minerality is the key to these wines.

We started with a glass of Merlot Rosé, produced from vines in Gisborne in the north island – the only wine in the line-up from outside Marlborough. The flagship Eradus Sauvignon Blanc (lean and savoury) and the Ana Sauvignon Blanc (fuller and more succulent) accompanied smoked trout and both stood up well to the lightly spiced dressing. Next up corn-fed chicken breast and, for me, the wine of the night – the Eradus Pinot Noir, which is proudly new world in fruit concentration and body, yet has a texture and earthy minerality of which Burgundians would approve (and all for £13.99!)

A late harvest Sauvignon Blanc arrived in the nick of time to accompany cheese and biscuits and to round off a thoroughly enjoyable evening. Michiel is without a doubt at the cutting edge in Marlborough and the wonderful news for drinkers is that his wines have that rare combination of real quality at weekday prices.

Buy-Eradus-Wines on our www.corneyandbarrow.com

In-Bond / Retail products

Your cart contains both retail and in-bond products, you cannot checkout with both.