Wining Away the Day in Marlborough Country

Today we are in the city of Picton which is in the Marlborough region, in the heart of New Zealand wine country.  For those of you who know us, we are “into” wine…more than a little.  We enjoy a wine paired dinner most every night!

Click here for the detailed Picton Photo Gallery.

We had another fun time last night (I blame the pink flowers) and are a bit leery about spending the day tasting wine…but you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do, and today it’s wine tasting in the Marlborough region.

New Zealand produces some of the worlds best Sauvignon Blanc wines.  The climate and soil, especially in this region, are perfect for this type of grape.  Also, due to the consistently cooler temperatures, they have a lot of luck growing and making Pinot Noir.

We boarded a coach with 40 other people and set out for three different wineries.  The first, Allan Scott Winery, was a very nice spot and we tasted a bunch of different wines and had a tour of their operation.  We even got to drink some wines right out of the stainless steel casks.  The majority of their Sauvignon Blanc wines age for only 6 weeks before they are bottled.

The next stop was at Hunter’s Wines.  This was a nice property complete with a working art studio.  We did our tasting and got to wander around checking out the artwork and playing with their resident kitty cat.

Last on the list was a visit to Drylands Winery.  By this time we were all getting a little silly and I opted to go into the restaurant area, which was adjacent to the tasting room, to see about getting something to eat.  Even though the restaurant was officially closed, the folks working there agreed to provide us with a small cheese and cracker plate.  The wines, which tended toward the more acidic, definitely tasted better with the cheese!

To top off the tour, our coach stopped at the Makana chocolate shop.  Here we had the opportunity to sample and purchase some of their  homemade chocolates although we found out they ship in the raw ingredients from Ghirardelli’s in San Francisco.  I reminded Dale that Valentine’s Day was just around the corner and that I like dark chocolate covered cherries please!

Back on the ship we were a bit tired from all the wine tasting and we opted to eat en-suite, where our butler, Trevor, delivered our 4-course meal in grand style!

Photography Comments:

Another gray and rainy day in rainy season in New Zealand.  Who would have thought?  I decided to get up early and do a walk-a-bout to town.  The rain let up mostly as I walked the 1/2 mile to town, discovering a flight seeing operation on the waterfront (OK, yes, it sort of has to be there).  As I walked down the dock I noticed a cormorant cleaning himself right off the sidewalk.  Apparently, he sort of lives in that spot and was quite tame.  I filmed him cleaning up after he had caught a few fish in the harbor.  He was pretty hilarious.  Then, he tucked his head in and took a nap, waking up to hang his wings out to dry.  The town was delightful but not quite woken up.  Back on the ship I talked Margaret into going to town again with me to explore.  We found a flea market in a parking lot and met some very interesting characters selling their wares.  After walking about town we came back to join our tour.  From that point on let’s just say I documented where we went on a bus trip today as we tried to avoid getting wet.

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