NEW ZEALAND’S TWO BEST WINE BUYS OF THE YEAR ANNOUNCED TODAY

Michael Cooper has just announced his Best White Wine Buy of the Year and Best Red Wine Buy of the Year awards, a highlight of his annual, best-selling New Zealand Wines 2015: Michael Cooper's Buyer's Guide, now in its 23rd edition. New Zealand Wines 2015: Michael Cooper’s Buyer’s Guide (which goes on sale today, RRP $39.99- Upstart Press), is essential reading for those who want objective information on the huge 2014 vintage. With totally independent, unbiased ratings and tasting notes on over 3000 New Zealand wines, the book is used by thousands of wine consumers and wine professionals around the world. This year’s Best White Wine Buy of the Year is Villa Maria Cellar Selection Hawke's Bay Viognier 2014 (****1/2, $19.95).  Cooper praises it as “full-bodied, fleshy, rich and dry, with strong, ripe stone-fruit flavours and complexity from fermentation in French oak barrels.  It’s the sort of wine for which you could easily pay well over $30.”  A few weeks after Michael selected the wine, it won a gold medal and trophy for Champion Commercial White Wine of the Show at the Hawke's Bay A & P Bayleys Wine Awards 2014. Brancott Estate Hawke's Bay Merlot 2013 (****, $17) has scooped the Best Red Wine Buy of the Year award.  Says Cooper: “If you are looking for a delicious, flavour-packed red that slips down easily and is highly affordable (when it’s on promotion, you can pick it up for less than $15), look no further.”   Cuisine recently gave it ****1/2, praising it as “an outstanding buy”, and it collected a gold medal at the New Zealand International Wine Show 2014. New Zealand Wine 2015: Michael Cooper’s Buyer’s Guide goes on sale today, Monday November 24, and the book’s full contents are also available online to members of Michael’s website, www.michaelcooper.co.nz