Again, I was excited about the wine regions in New Zealand and Marlborough is one of the largest wine producing areas in New Zealand. Also, we have been told is the "new world" wines first generated attention in the wine world.
We mapped out a course as best we could to include larger wineries we had heard about in the U.S as well as some smaller outfits to discover some new wines. Also, there are a lot of wineries in the region, and without having days in the area; it is impossible to try them all in a day. I was disappointed to find out the Kim Crawford does not have a "cellar Door" (wine tasting area at the winery) as that is the Sauvignon Blanc that my friends from the firm and I would have a glass of at the Palm.
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We started off with Maui wines where there was a beautiful tasting room with stained oak wine barrel slots for the walls. We tried what is the typical selection of wines in this region which is a couple of Sauvignon Blancs a Gewürztraminer or Chardonnay or Pinot Gris and of course Pinot Noir.
We then headed to TWR where there was a tasting with the owners of the winery. It was a small sparse tasting room, but we had a great time chatting up the owners about their wine and wine making philosophy. We really enjoyed their Riesling "D". Neither Jim nor I generally drink Riesling as it is generally very sweet, but we were told that the more classic Riesling is actually not too sweet. We purchased a bottle of the Riesling to enjoy with our green-lipped mussels for dinner (more on that later).
From TWR we headed to Fromm Winery. This winery is different from the typical Marlborough winery as it focuses on red wines. They had a Syrah and Pinot Noir. The winemaker is from Switzerland and focuses on what he calls, "cassic European styles, and wines with an unpolished expression of vineyard, climate, vintage and people involved." We then stopped by Cloudy Bay. Cloudy Bay has a sleek tasting room with a view back to their ageing Chardonnay barrels.
Finally we headed to Allen Scott Winery. They have a fabulous looking restaurant and a bubbly lady pouring the tastings and answering a plethora of questions.
While in the tasting room, Jim noticed a picture of the Scott family and spied the father and son with.... beer? We found out that the son opened a brewery "Moa" down the road from the winery. While Jim likes wine, he is truly a beer connoisseur. So we had to seek out Moa. The brewery is named Moa after an extinct, flightless bird endemic to New Zealand that were about 12 feet in height.
We sat out on the front patio of Moa with a couple of locals talking about New Zealand and beer. The brew master came out to chat with us and we sampled the beer in different stages of brewing including some very hoppy beer before it gets "aged" in Chardonnay barrels from the winery.
After Moa, we found a beautiful place on the beach to camp. And we started to make green-lipped mussel dinner. To get to Marlborough from Nelson we went through Havelock, the self proclaimed "green lipped mussel capital off the world." As it is the capital, we had to try some and at the source they were a great deal.
We steamed them with a garlic white wine sauce with bread to soak up the sauce. They were delicious and maybe the best (and biggest) mussels either of us have ever had!
After Marlborough, we went into Christchurch. Though we did not stay long in the city, we had a nice afternoon wandering through the city center and had a nice lunch there. Christchurch, at least on a Saturday, is very mellow with people shopping, dining and running and biking on the bike paths through the many parks in town. We then made our way out to the Banks Peninsula where we camped for the night again right on the water. The following day we drove out to Akaroa. The drive was beautiful and the town of Akaroa is a quaint and friendly mix of French colonial and Maori culture.
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