This was an exciting and challenging set of wines for our judges to tackle. As another year passes, the glories of the stellar vintages of 2019, 2020 and 2021 are, for the most part, fading from view. Rising into the foreground are the 2022 and 2023 vintages: both vintages showed considerable regional variability due to some parts of the country being profoundly affected by adverse – and in the case of Hawke’s Bay, catastrophic – weather events. However despite doom and gloom, people prevail, as they always do. No one works harder than a wine crew during vintage and despite the weather, the workload or the time of day (or night), the grapes get harvested and the end result for you is some glorious wines that hail from various regions all over the country. The top thirteen alone cover Marlborough, Hawke’s Bay, Central Otago, Wairarapa and Nelson. This baker’s dozen? Unlucky for none.