Marlborough: tastes, sights and Sounds
I arrived in Blenheim to a pleasant surprise. This small city is, to us, merely the staging area for the food and wine festival, hosted at the Branscott Estate winery on its outskirts, I hadn’t given a second thought to what it might actually be like.
This is wise I think! This trip has taught me that imagination is often far riper – or at least more idealistic – than reality, and dwelling too long on a destination before arrival may end in disappointment. Which may explain why Auckland and Wellington somewhat disappointed and why Chrischurch, Queenstown and Nelson scored highly on the Reader approval scale; I thought far less about the latter.
In particular we found the most charming restaurant – the Secret Garden – where I chose a Reisling that was a hit with everyone and where they even served London Pride. I was staggered to discover that a beer that normally suffers from travelling 100 miles down the M4 tasted incredibly palatable half way around the world. A brewery in the Pacific perhaps? (I always thought it was Chiswick-brewed only)
It was a thoroughly nice evening being reunited with some old friends and meeting some new ones – Sarah, Carolyn, Nicky and Amy – and an honour to share a dorm with four chicks :-p
What goes on tour to Blenheim stays in Blenheim.
Actually the only thing that needs to remain under lock and key FOREVER is the video footage of the sing-along in the common room of the hostel. It was fun at the time, but I imagine the results were excruciating!
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The next day was the long-awaited wine festival.
First a visit to Nick’s – local and friend of Carolyn’s – place for a fortifying breakfast of salmon and scrambled eggs. Quite apart from being a sociable (and high living: Nick’s pad was veeery des res) way to start the day, it was also a stomach-lining exercise, but I had to remind myself that the festival was also a food event, and not to over-eat. Not until later at least =)
We got bused out to the winery and upon entry were handed an engraved glass (which I still have) and the option of buying a very fetching and practical round-the-neck wine glass holder. We all looked like pricks, but didn’t care.
The festival had around 30 wineries with half a dozen wines to try. You could choose between a 100ml taste for $2-4 or a full glass for the standard rate.
Food stands included pies (of course! – they’re big here) and seafood.
Price-wise the best deals were to be had with the food, seafood platters available for $10 and pies for about $5. You could spend more of course but this selection suited me!
I spent the the first half of the day on white, with a vague plan to switch to reds later. This I did, but with Pinot Noir being the main varietal here, and it not being my favorite, and moved back onto whites and the sweet wines for the rest of the day.
I also made the initial mistake of heading straight for the names I recognized – Cloudy Bay, Villa Maria, Wither Hills etc – all of which you can get back home. So I promptly diverted to less-known wineries.
Of particular hit status amongst our crowd was Charles Wiffen and his late harvest Riesling. We ended the day on a full glass (my only non-taster) of Cloudy Bay’s take one the same, which was a delight, every swig heaven sent.
The only downside to the event was the live festival-style music. I like that NZ can have an event like this which bridges the divide between connoisseurship and youth culture but the two headline acts (Opesouls, The Checks; openers Sola Rosa were good, I thought) didn’t for me suit the ambience at all. And the less said about the terrible covers band that followed them the better. My ears, as well as my head and my sunburnt body, ached.
The festival closed (by our standards) quite early – at 6pm – and the coach services did an impressive job of shuttling several thousand winos back to town.
We attempted some pubbing after but we were frankly too far gone for it and were only good for sleep. The girls were in bed by 10, so I went online in the hope of finding my girlfriend on the opposite side of the world, at the opposite end of the day doing the same. She was! So I ended the day with some thrills and spills on Skype.
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On Sunday we were invited to Nick’s other swanky home – his bach – just outside Picton in the Marlborough Sounds.
Here were are hooning around in them:
Categories: New Zealand, Travel
