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Highlight Wine Tour


This post was published on Friday 11 January 2019.

Marlborough Wine Trail

Super neat vineyards!

Today was all about wine. We were collected from the campground at 9.50am, and dropped back at 5.00pm, having spent the day tasting wine – 32 different wines, to be precise!

One of the things we noticed at almost all the vineyards is how tall and neat the vines are – apparently this is a combination of the age of the vine, the particular climate, and the way of harvesting the grapes (mostly mechanically).

And there are many, many vineyards here, as you can see from the wine trail map – and the map only includes the vineyards that are open for tasting!

Obviously it’s not a sensible idea to drive round tasting all these – hence why we booked a tour – but there were still loads of people cycling their way round the vineyards!

Our tour was with Highlight Wine Tours, and our driver / guide was Colleen. She tailors the vineyards to everyone’s individual tastes, so each tour is slightly different. With us on our tour were three Irish ladies, who were doing our holiday in reverse: having started on the South Island, this was their last day before travelling to the North Island.

1 | Villa Maria (wine count: 9)

The day began at Villa Maria – which people back home may recognise as it’s one of the biggest exporters of NZ wine to the UK and Ireland. As might be expected, they send us all their cheap mechanically-harvested stuff, and keep the good ‘Reserve’ wines for themselves.

The wines here were much better than I expected – the best being a Malbec/Cabernet blend which was delicious, and only available from the vineyard door, because it was so good they decided to make it one of their ‘library’ collection.

The only duff wine was the chardonnay, which had a very strange flavour – if we hadn’t been drinking it from the vineyard door I would have said it was off – I would possibly even have sent it back if we’d ordered it at a restaurant.

2 | Cloudy Bay (wine count: 13)

You can see what inspired their logo...

Next on the list was Cloudy Bay. Again this is one that can be purchased in the UK, but not one we had tried.

The wines here were a step up from Villa Maria, in particular the chardonnay, which tasted much nicer! But the winner was their pinot noir, which was lovely and light – one to look out for back in the UK.

3 | Wairau River (wine count: 19)

The third vineyard was Wairau River, a family-owned and family-run business – pretty much every member of the family has a job in it, from wine maker to restaurant chef to accountant. The wines were excellent as well – probably the best overall in terms of taste and variety. Unlike many of the vineyards, who outsource their grape growing, Wairau River grow all their grapes themselves, which gives them complete control over their wines.

This was also our lunch stop-off, which was much needed by this point! Again, the food was excellent, and we had one of their wines each – Jess had a pinot noir with her beef salad and I had a pinot gris (slightly sweeter version of pinot grigio – the same grapes, but harvested a little later) with a salted chicken burger. Again the chips were amazing – we think they might lightly batter them, which is how they achieve the crunch.

4 | Framingham Wines (wine count: 25)

Named after a Norfolk village, the ancestral home of the winery’s founder, they are known for their riesling wines, having some of the oldest riesling vines in the valley. The three ladies on the tour with us were particularly interested in trying rieslings, which is why we stopped here.

Once again, the wines were good Рand in a valley full of sauvignon blancs, this was the best we tried today. We also tried a montepulciano ros̩, which was really delicious Рit had a full, deep flavour without losing the sweetness and refreshing nature of a ros̩.

5 | No. 1 Family Estates (wine count: 27)

An aspirational name for this family-owned winery...! The proprietors are French, who previously worked in the champagne region. A number of years ago they brought their expertise in méthode champenoise to NZ to make champagne-style wines in Marlborough. It has to be called méthode traditionelle here though, as the wine makers in Champagne have been copyrighting the names of everything involved in their process!

We tried two types of sparkling wine here, but actually neither was the best sparkling wine of the day, which was surprising.

6 | Hunter’s Wines (wine count: 32)

Our final winery was Hunter’s – one of the oldest in Marlborough.

One of the most striking things at Hunter’s are the vines you drive past as you enter the winery. They are ludicrously high – apparently the founder grew them like this to try and stand out from the crowd a bit. You can see how high they are in the photos – even I couldn’t reach the grapes standing on tip-toes!

Finally, the sun came out and it started to warm up, so we were able to sit outside for our tasting.

They call their sparkling wine ‘MiruMiru’, which is Maori for ‘bubbles’ – and this was the highlight sparkling wine of the day, so much so we bought a bottle to have on our last night in Auckland, before we fly home.

We also tried their Offshoot Sauvignon, which is left to ferment in the bottle, making it naturally carbonated, and cloudy. It was a really unusual flavour, and tasted like a home-made wine might.

Their pinot noir was fantastically light Рmore like a dark ros̩ than a red Рand delicious. We ended with their late-harvest riesling, which was a beautifully sweet way to round off the tasting.

Yummmmy

I’m not sure I’ve ever been anywhere with so many wineries packed into such a tight space, or in such beautiful surroundings. The mountains either side of the valley protect it from the excesses of NZ weather, creating a micro-climate that’s ideal for making white wine.

If you like sauvignon blanc it’s got to be one of the best wine tours you could do – but I was glad that if you don’t (like us), there is still plenty to enjoy, and even one or two sauvignons that are tasty!

The vineyards and the mountains
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