New Zealand Marlborogh Stop 22Dec22-23Dec22

Day 10 - Travel To Marlborough; To Blenheim

We drove into Blenheim from Nelson and arrived at our place there, the Scenic Marlborough, after a driving rain the entire way here. Our luck regarding weather has been stellar ~ rain is constrained to just travel days! NP. The Scenic is good and we scored some nice recommendations for eateries and taphouses. After arriving we moved in and then headed our to the Dodson for a quick pizza & beer after the drive. Decent spot with 10 local Renascence beers (as in "in the next room") and a dozen guest taps. A hearty German couple ran it and we enjoyed the pizza flavors despite the weird crust/dough. The Apollo hazy wasn't good enough so Kala & I chose some alternative "west coast" styles from guest from nearby towns. The place was funky and adorned with some great meme posters.

We walked back and then headed out again via the park and (meager) downtown. Frank's served us excellent food ~ sashimi, cauliflower, and iceberg wedge. The sashimi with roasted tomato extract, caper and olive oil was a standout. On the way back we grabbed some hazies and berries.

Tomorrow is a wine tour day, and the primary reason we hit this region, but back at the ranch we trialed some of the hazies we'd bought. Most excellent again ~ I guess those that distribute are better than what we have found in taphouses and taprooms thus far in general ~ distribution seems pretty regional too.

Day 11 - Marlborough Wine Tour

We ate breakfast of berries & yogurt & bread in the room before our pickup for a day of winery touring and wine tasting. Our guide Darlene picked us up at the Scenic mid-AM; we were the last pickup. We met a couple from Milwaukee, a sister-in-law team from Australia, and newlyweds from Syracuse. Darlene moved to NZ from Indonesia and went to viticulture school here ~ she started tour guiding when her son mentioned the 12 hour days at the winery didn't leave time for him anymore. We hit five wineries across the day, dining fine at one of them. As to varieties, New Zealand is known most for it's sauvignon blanc... 80% of Marlborough is SB and 80% of NZ einr exportd are from Marlborough. This might be holding innovation back some IMO as, after SB earned some international acclaim, the growers were incentivized to overturn their current vines for SB. Some have other very decent varieties ~ we tasted a good tempranillo, fine blanc de blanc, and some decent pinot noirs. The vineyards are rarely worked by hand (I guess not enough workers), except in rare reserve wines picked by hand. The vineyards are pruned by machine and ultimately picked by hand... see the super thin vine rows to enable machine work.

Mount Riley ~ Our 1st stop was a special private exclusive tour & tasting @ Mount Riley; the tour company owner used to work there and gained us access; the tasting room is no longer open. Darlene did a great job taking us through the wine-making process [shredder/stripper>crusher>steel tanks>oak barrels] and then serving us Mount Riley's tastes... which were very good, especially, relatively by end of day, their pinot noir. Not as good as Burgundy or Oregon but lighter and more mineral-ladden, and good. The wine maker married the owners daughter and got the head job. We had to wear "Wine Snob" vests... hmmm. All the wines from Mt Riley were very affordable.

Lawson's Dry Hills ~ Next up was another cool property; we "lost" our guide for info though as Lawson's had their own for us. The property was very nice and the backdrop of one of the only golden hills we've seen (vs vibrant greens) was notable. I know of ABC (anything but chardonnay) but when in NZ maybe there should be BBC (bring back chardonnay). Lawson's was less tasty in general than Mt Riley for us, except for the chardonnay; the C down here was more mineral & fruit, than oak & butter... more refined and French-like to my palate, and preferred. The region's best, sauvignon blanc, was not good enough here.

 

Saint Clair ~ 3rd up was lunch at this winery/restaurant. Very good food and very good wine. Given we bought the lunches in addition to the wine tour pricing, it had to be so. Gavin was our sommelier; he did a fine job. We'd been searching for green-lipped mussels since we passed through Havelock, deep on the Marlborough sound, yesterday (that's where they were from but we didn't want to stop at the time). Kala chose those with a nice albarino and I got the seared duck salad, and we really liked Saint Clair's sauvignon blanc (finally an outstanding one ~ we were patient). Frankly Saint Cloud served the best wines stem to stern. We hopped back upon "Hop 'n' Grape' bound for the OG, Cloudy Bay.

Cloudy Bay ~ This winery is one of the originals to plant vines in this area... and to make sauv blanc to world acclaim. Below you can see all the SB vintages since 1985 ~ yep that's the original "way back" in '85. They are now owned by Louis Vuitton, etc. ~ so, kind of French. As the temps dropped below -14°F in COS we arrived at Cloudy Bay @ 70°F. This too is a great property, recently renewed, inside and out. Their presenter started us with a bubbly (I wondered if they had such) but they don't add pinot meunier as most champagnes, just chardonnay & pinot nior. It was big bubbled, and while decent, not too refined. We moved on and through their SB and PN. They use big oak barrels at Cloudy Bay.

Rock Ferry ~ This is an organic and bio-dynamic vineyard where we wrapped up our tour. As implied earlier, don't abandon all possible varietals for SB in Marlborough ~ Rock Ferry temperanillo was awesome, as was theire blanc d' blanc. This spot was lower key but better in many ways.

Makana ~ Sure we finished with wine at Rock Ferry but we closed out the tour at a famous chocolatier, Makana.

They are probably bummed at us but we bought no incremental bottles ~ we are jumping on trains and hikes for another 3 weeks almost before heading home.