The New Zealand wine that shook the chateaux of Bordeaux to their foundations early this year is about to be put on the market at a price of $60 a bottle.

The success of the Gimblett Gravels wine in a double-blind tasting against Chateau Lafite, Chateau Mouton Rothschild and Chateau Haut Brion among other top Bordeaux wines was reported widely around the world.

Participants tasted 12 carefully selected wines, six from Bordeaux and six from Gimblett Gravels, Hawke’s Bay and were invited to submit their top six ranked wines in order of preference.

The Cornerstone 2006 - a Bordeaux blend of cabernet, merlot and malbec finished impressively in the top six in the blind tasting - just below the $1950 bottle of 2005 Chateau Haut-Brion.

Wine commentator Jancis Robinson suggested to the tasting panel that "the Gimblett Gravels wines tasted were the closest comparison to the Bordeaux wines of any wine region (in the world) today".

Newton Forrest Estate launched the wine on the New Zealand market from the 24^th of last month, and its backers don’t expect the bottles to be lying around on shop shelves for very long.

"I think the most amazing thing about the tasting is the fact the Cornerstone is a fraction of the price of the Bordeaux wines, yet stands up next to them in quality," says Dr John Forrest, Newton Forrest Estate's winemaker and business partner of Australian born and trained viticulturist Bob Newton.

"With this and global enquiries we will see this wine disappear very quickly,”