Touring Wineries

Now, I have been a food professional in some capacity or another for quite a number of years. Despite my enamorment with wine, I have never toured a winery or been to a tasting room (as they like to call them here "cellar door"). When we left Oamaru, we drove up the east coast buzzing through Kaikoura and settling in Picton for a couple days. Surrounding the Picton area, in Blenheim, is the heart of the Marlborough wine country. Each picturesque stretch gives way to the next landscape beyond and some of the wineries in this flat valley are so close that biking tours are common here. You know, you rent a bike, get a map, and go - as the day wears on the bike path gets a bit more wiggly and giggly.

The first three pictures are from Allen Scott winery which was still small enough to be called *boutique* but had really neat grounds. They had a cafe under a canopy of vines, a huge chess board (the pawns were glasses of wine!), and rows of hedges like you wouldn't believe. We bought a couple bottles (yet to be opened) of late harvest Riesling.





Our favorite winery was Clos Henri which, yes, is French. The owners of the winery have been making wine in Sauternes for generations, but because of the AOC, they have been looking abroad to expand elsewhere.

After a ten year search, they found the soil conditions in Blenheim to be perfect for growing Sauvignon Blanc and Pinot Noir on both river bed terroir and clay. We tasted bottlings from each and ended up with a bottle in hand - although I will admit that the favorite thing we tasted was one of their Pinots from France. It felt just wrong coming all the way to NZ to buy French wine at a winery... so we passed on that and are bringing home the runner up.

Here's a neat picture of the vines with the surrounding mountains in the background. Not bad, eh?