Astrolabe Wines

Astrolabe Wines Astrolabe was created in 1996, and is a culmination of a winemaking career that began in 1982.

All Simon's skill and experience combine to capture the essence of Marlborough in wines of purity, focus and elegance. Named after the ship that in 1827 charted and explored the Marlborough Coast, Astrolabe is a personal project for winemaker Simon Waghorn and his wife, Jane. Astrolabe produces a range of wines that express the purity and intensity of fruit flavours naturally afforded by the clima

te and soils of the Marlborough region. All grapes are sourced from unique Marlborough sites, carefully chosen to add complexity and completeness in the wines. Simon is fascinated by the distinctive qualities of the Marlborough sub-regions, whether bottled alone or blended as part of the Marlborough classic. All Simon’s skill and experience combine to capture the essence of Marlborough in wines of purity, focus and elegance. Website: astrolabewines.co.nz

Twitter: https://twitter.com/astrolabewines

Instagram: http://instagram.com/AstrolabeWines

At the start of spring, we look back on the previous season. Here are some photos Arabella took at The Farm vineyard and...
01/09/2026

At the start of spring, we look back on the previous season. Here are some photos Arabella took at The Farm vineyard and included in our winter newsletter, which you can catch at the link in our bio. To receive these quarterly updates directly, make sure you subscribe.

Frost on an artichoke leaf in the vegetable patch

The flock of sheep at the farm about to move into the vineyard once pruning is complete

Riesling vines at the farm before pruning

Wool used as mulch in Jane’s garden

Mānuka plantings at the border of The Farm vineyard as part of Jane’s restoration project

One of the most beautiful things about Marlborough is our spectacular sunsets. Last night during our w**e tasting club, ...
26/08/2026

One of the most beautiful things about Marlborough is our spectacular sunsets. Last night during our w**e tasting club, we watched through the large fire station door at the front of our w**ery as the nor-wester sky changed from brilliant teal and gold to fiery orange and mauve, finishing off cotton candy pink and lavender. We managed to snap a couple of pictures of the view from our Small Town W**ery Cellar Door and W**e Bar at Horton Street.

It was another great weekend pouring w**e as a sponsor of the Marlborough Book Festival. There were so many great books ...
27/07/2026

It was another great weekend pouring w**e as a sponsor of the Marlborough Book Festival. There were so many great books and conversations with authors. To have the opportunity to talk to such amazing authors as Catherine Chidgey and Shehan Karunatilaka was fantastic. Swipe through to see a few photos that Arabella took throughout the weekend. I created a few floral pieces to decorate the festival theatre. Doing flower arrangements in the middle of winter can be a challenge, but I was saved by friends and hellebores. — Jane

21/07/2026

It’s almost the — We’ve been proud sponsors of the festival since the first one back in 2014 and as always Jane is hosting a couple of sessions. She’ll be interviewing and winner . You’ll find us pouring Astrolabe w**es at a few other great sessions over the weekend — see you there!

10/06/2026

A peaceful morning at Astrolabe Farm vineyard, picking olives in harmony with nature… Word of the day: bacchiatura, Italian for the age old method of harvesting by beating a tree with a stick. Our olive harvest always signals the start of winter in Marlborough. We have a small grove of organically grown olives beside our vineyard, with a mix of Manzanilla, Barnea, Frantoio, Leccino and Pendolino. Olive oil was mainly just made for the family, but with the opening of our **ery it is now our house olive oil in our tasting room and w**e bar.

As it turns to Winter, it’s a great time to look back on the recent harvest and consider the w**es that we have made. We...
02/06/2026

As it turns to Winter, it’s a great time to look back on the recent harvest and consider the w**es that we have made. We have just been blending our 2026 Sauvignon blancs, and the quality of the vintage is looking high, with classic character being delivered by each sub-region. For our Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc, we first start with a geographical impulse putting together a cross section of Marlborough that roughly represents the diversity of terroir available to us using the many component w**es we have made, with vineyards divided into component blocks and separately vinified. The challenge is then to beat the basic blend, making small adjustments in the relative position of different vineyards and blocks, fine-tuning the proportion of a given w**e in the blend, to produce a w**e that is familiarly an Astrolabe style, that works with the best of the vintage and integrates into a seamless whole. As well as these larger blends, we also work with many small parcels at our Small Town W**ery, including our classic single vineyard w**es and the two newest additions to our range. This year Arabella has a project for her .nz series of w**es which is currently maturing in barrel.

To hear our reflections on the harvest, sign up for our mailing list (link in bio) for our quarterly seasonal report, which we will be sending out soon. You can also view previous newsletters on our website.

📸: by Arabella of the 2026 harvest at Astrolabe Farm.

Chardonnay is where it all began for Astrolabe. Simon’s first w**e for Astrolabe was a single vineyard Chardonnay with f...
21/05/2026

Chardonnay is where it all began for Astrolabe. Simon’s first w**e for Astrolabe was a single vineyard Chardonnay with fruit from the Inder family from their old vineyard in Grovetown. In 2005, when the Inders retired, the Waghorn family took over the farm, and it is still the heart of everything we do at Astrolabe. The last vintage that our Marlborough Chardonnay was a single vineyard Farm Chardonnay was 2011. From 2012, Simon brought in beautiful fruit from another great organic site in Marlborough and as we developed and looked to sub-regions further around the Marlborough region, Awatere valley fruit from the super cool regenerative block at the van Asch family’s Little Oasis was added in 2018. We now make two additional single vineyard Chardonnays from The Farm and Wrekin and release them only in special vintages. Happy Chardonnay Day.

12/05/2026

New t-shirt design — behind the scenes on the story of harvest 2026. This year, a vintage fantasy t-shirt inspired design on a muted ecru t-shirt for a softer, vintage look and feel. Screenprinted by the artisans in a beautifully faded colour palette, transporting us to a magical world of ents, orcs, elves and giant waxeyes. As always, it features small illustrations of our adventuring band on their quest through the trials of vintage to earn their precious t-shirt. If you weren’t part of the Astrolabe fellowship for vintage 2026, they are available in our cellar door now — a great way to spend your gold.

Two new release w**es just in time for  Southern Valleys Sauvignon Blanc Southern Valleys Syrah The oak-aged Sauvignon ...
30/04/2026

Two new release w**es just in time for
 
Southern Valleys Sauvignon Blanc 
Southern Valleys Syrah
 
The oak-aged Sauvignon Blanc and Syrah are designed to explore the capacity of Marlborough’s Southern Valleys subregion to produce age-worthy w**es of the highest quality. The Southern Valleys region is known for producing ripe, concentrated Pinot noir, but we feel it also has great potential for Syrah, and the Sauvignon blanc here delivers great concentration and persistence with a riper profile that shines with oak treatment. The quality of fruit produced by our climate and geography here in Marlborough is a gift and we feel like it’s our responsibility as Marlborough w**emakers to take that fruit and keep pushing to see how we can craft it into w**es of the highest possible standard so that w**e drinkers can see just how special this region is. The w**es will be released on 1 May 2026, Sauvignon Blanc Day, available directly from Astrolabe W**es.  

It’s almost time to reveal our harvest t-shirt for 2026! We design these in-house with a different theme each year and m...
21/04/2026

It’s almost time to reveal our harvest t-shirt for 2026! We design these in-house with a different theme each year and make a few art prints that we sell in our cellar door. The illustrations are a lot of fun to make, full of w**emaking jokes and feature illustrations of the w**emaking team (and Simon’s dog, Bob). We have had our first two vintages framed in bold colours by to display at our cellar door and w**e bar **ery which you can take a closer look at by swiping across.

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197 Rapaura Road
Blenheim

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+6435776794

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