NZ2024 - Leg 22 March 17 - Marlborough wine

Today was a day of wine and roses - but mostly wine.  The only roses I really saw were actually at the ends of the rows of grapevines at one of the vineyards in the Marlborough region.  How blessed am I to have a friend invite me and my friend to stay with her for a couple of days while we're in her area!  But here we are and enjoying her hospitality for yet another day, and she has the whole day planned.  And in the true spirit of St. Patrick's Day, we have a day full of wine tastings!

We are ready a little bit ahead of time, so she takes us around her neighbourhood, which is set in the hills, and each property is unique.  There is a golf course in the middle of all the houses, so each house has a view of at least a couple of the greens.  So lovely!   While we're driving around, we see a family of Pukekos, what appears to be a parent and two youngsters.  They're a lovely member of the rails, also known as swamphens, and are quite plentiful throughout Austalasia.

The first wine tasting is at 10:30 at the winery she works at part-time, Framingham.  She has talked about her colleagues there, and how much fun they are, so we're looking forward to meeting them, and trying the Reislings.  Aside from trying a number of Reislings and learning how to distinguish one from another, we have a lot of laughs as Lolly, in her leprechaun outfit complete with fake beard, accent, and all the little Irish -isms. makes joke after joke.  The wine is delicious, and having had a few "tastes", Linda and I decide we really should walk to the next winery, which Bridget assures us is only "next door", only a 10 minute walk, and we have 20 minutes before our scheduled time.

The day is shaping up to be yet another gloriously warm day with clear blue skies, and the walk is very enjoyable.  We giggle a little bit - first while trying to take a selfie, and not being able to get the sign included, then at taking a wrong turn walking to the next winery, and winding up trudging through a pile of sawdust (it was a lumber place - you'd think we would clue in before that?).  

Nautilus is our next stop and Bridget of course is already there when we arrive, as it was likely only about a 2-3 minute drive.  The seating area outside is sheltered by trees and there is little wind and some sun - just right.  Shelley, our server is very kind and generous, not just with the wines (we get a couple of extra, I think), but with her knowledge.  She shares some very interesting information about the bubbly we've been drinking, and it is a lovely, relaxing day.  In between wines here at Nautilus, the three of us are having a wonderful conversation, and thoroughly enjoying our time together.

  

  

Having now had the equivalent of a couple of glasses of wine, albeit over almost an hour, but still before lunch, Bridget has wisely booked us into one of the few wineries in the area that have a full meal.  Allan Scott Wineries have a fantastic menu, and Bridget suggests we share a starter of Sourdough bread with black garlic and coconut butter.  It sounds weird, but it was absolutely fantastic!  The bread was still warm from the oven, and had a golden, crunchy crust, but the inside was soft, and perfectly sour.  The butter - weird is it may sound - was so yummy, we almost ordered another!  The mains we ordered were also fantastic, and I tried a Feijoa Fizz, rather than having more wine.  After all, we still had one more tasting to go!

  

  

The last tasting of the day was at Wither Hills.  This was one of the larger wineries in the area, so we had high expectations.  They had an interesting, but somewhat limited offering, although I quite enjoyed all of the wines offered.   

It was now after 3 pm, and we were all ready for a wee break.  Bridget had offered to take us to a private movie theater, where they showed interesting and unique movies in an old outbuilding that had been converted into a theater.  We were looking forward to a couple of hours of rest first - I wanted to do some writing, and the others had their own plans - so we went back to Bridget's for a couple of hours.  It was an early showing tonight, which really suited us, it meant we could get home again at a reasonable time to pack up before our flight to Wellington tomorrow.

We got to the theater a bit early, which meant we got the best parking and the best seats.  We could bring our own snacks (supper, really, a picnic!) and wine, and of course Bridget brought the best of both.  Cheese, pears, carrots, crackers, popcorn, some of the Albarino wine we had purchased at Nautilus earlier in the day.  The movie was a French film - actually a French-Canadian film - that seemed to start a little slow, but by the time it was finished, we were all quite engaged, and chatted about it all the way "home".  We had one more glass of wine before hitting the sack.  

Tomorrow would be an early day, as our flight to Wellington left at 10 a.m.  Can't believe we have less than a week left before flying home.