Situated in the deep end of the South Pacific, New Zealand is famously remote, with Australia serving as her only neighbor, over 1000 miles to the west. Fortunately for the New Zealanders (or Kiwis, in the local parlance), the topography is as dramatic as the nation is remote. New Zealand stretches for over 1000 miles from north to south and as such, has a widely varying climate. If it were transposed onto European latitudes, the nation would stretch from the Baltic Sea and Denmark to the African nation of Tunisia. This means that New Zealand's vineyard regions are as varying in latitude as the Rhine Valley in Germany and Andalucia in the south of Spain. Most of the nations vineyards, however, are kept quite temperate by the chilly ocean currents.

So far the best results have been with whites, as Sauvignon Blanc from Marlborough had lead the way. Amazingly crisp and vibrant with an extraordinary herbal pungency, Marlborough's sauvignons are wines that can't be ignored, though they seem to find a love it or hate it reception. Chardonnay on the other hand tends to the well balanced, crisp, and flavorful model as opposed to the famously rich versions from "neighboring" Australia. Either way, the emergence of New Zealand over the last several years has made the wine world that much richer. Those who experiment will be rewarded.