Tasty taste of Marlborough Wines

Marlborough offers excellent white wine. Over 87% of their harvest is sauvignon blanc, but I was very impressed with their dry Riesling and Gewurztraminer wines. On this trip I also discovered I prefer Pinot Gris to any of their other white wine varieties…well they didn’t have Soave which is my favorite white wine.

I booked a tour yesterday, mostly because I was too tired to do anything else. This morning I wished I'd biked to the vineyards because it was cloudy. Clouds provide the perfect biking weather on a Marlborough summer day; still I’m glad I did the tour. I did not need to worry about figuring out what tasting room to go to. I didn’t have to worry about getting on a bike or about cicadas flying into my face, like they did in Abel Tasman. Highlight Wine Tours was definitely the right way to go! Colleen was too much fun and definitely kept us all on our toes. I kept joking that by the time we went to another vineyard I was already sober, but as you are about to read, our tastebuds feasted on this day!

We visited six different wine tasting rooms and even had to chance to taste cheese and chocolate. I cannot complain, our travel group was fun and we were all excited to drink wine and enjoy our time there.

Our first stop was at Hunter’s Wine. They are recognized as one of the first in the Marlborough wine industry since they have been in business since 1979. Yes, New Zealand is a very young country! At Hunter’s Wine I was delighted to taste 10 different wines. We tried MiruMiru (meaning bubbles in Maori), a slightly peachy and citrusy sparkling wine. I loved their 2009 Riesling, a very deliciously crisp and dry wine. But there were two extra surprises on the tasting menu. The 2014 Gewurztraminer was also dry with hints of tropical fruits such as lychee and guava with a bit of cinnamon! Then their 2011 blend called ‘The Chase’ was a super easy to drink wine even in the summer – it is a blend of Pinot Noir, Merlot, and Cab.

From Hunter’s Wine we were dropped off at Framingham where I fell in love with their Pinot Gris. They refer to it as a creamy "generous apple strudel" and boy, were they right! I even bought myself a bottle.

From Framingham we went to the Vines Village where Eradus and other artisan stores are located. At Eradus their dessert wine called ‘Sticky Mickey’ rules, yet their 2014 Suvignon Blac named Ana was also very enjoyable. After walking around The Vines Village our tour left for Wairau River Wines.

At Wairau I ate a double baked blue cheese soufflé with their reserve Viognier, and tasted more delicious wines (for which I lost my notes…and for which I was very chatty with the other tasters….well, I had tasted at least 20 wines by the time we got to Wairau and we tasted 5 more wines before lunch began...) But I do remember the double baked blue cheese soufflé and oh my, was that light and creamy on the tongue with a very subtle taste of blue cheese! YUM!

From Wairau we then went to Bladen Wines, which was probably my favorite tasting room and might possibly be “the smallest tasting room in Marlborough.” I loved this place mostly because the owners are the ones serving at the tasting rooms, we had the pleasure of hanging out with Christine and hearing all the stories of how they got involved in the wine business. At their tasting room I feel in love with their 2013 dry Riesling and I am eager to eat it with some mild to medium spiced thai food – hmmm, pad kra pow sounds good.

To end the wine tasting portion of our tour, we were taken to Saint Clair Vineyard Kitchen. I loved the detail they provide about their wines during tasting for example acidity levels (in g/L) and exact pH of the wine! There I tasted a Gruner Veltliner for the first time. They blessed theirs as the Pioneer Block 5 and it tasted like peppery mango. They also had a Malbec – not common in that region – and much lighter than Mendoza’s Malbecs with berry flavors taking over the palate.

From there our tour walked us to Pataka, a food store where I couldn’t resist from buying their garlic noir and their blue cheese. The garlic noir is something I had never tasted in my life, they call it umami, but it's more complex and more delicious than umami. It is a garlic with hints of salty licorice. Then we went to the Makana to taste their Macademia Butter Toffee Crunch! OH MY! That’s all I can say about that.

Oh...and I forgot to mention that today I had the best smoked salmon I have eaten in my life for breakfast at the 3 Bears Café in Renwick.