Sunday, January 20, 2013

Honeymoon - Wine tasting, and the first time I spat out nice wine!








Starting wine tasting at 10am, don’t mind if I do. Our tour, thanks to Jean-Louis and Danielle started at Lawson Dry Hills, a small family run vineyard. The host was fantastic, talking us through the 6 wines we tasted. We couldn’t resist buying two, one of the rose is for me, it tastes like eating strawberries. Our next stop was Villa Maria for a few more. This time we bought a Sauvignon Blanc, renowned in the area. I did something I’ve never done before, spat out the wine instead of drinking it! We have a 6 hour journey ahead.
On to the Brancott Estate and the most amazing view over Marlborough. I love the look of vineyards with their uniform lines. We bought a sparkling sauvignon which was gorgeous. We then went on to Spy Valley for an excellent talk about each of the wines we tasted. We purchased a pinot noir here. Ali loved it and she doesn’t even like wine, but smelt each of my wine tastings. The Swedish clan we were on the tour with drank every tasting and were on a full day tour. They were already merry by lunch when we departed. 

On the road for almost 6 hours to get to Collingwood. We had ‘new balls please’ aka switch driver at Nelson and then it was my stint over the mountain pass with some vertical cliffs below us…in a huge camper…which weighs a ton. I felt like an ice road trucker! We stopped at Te Waikoporpupu spring, the most pure spring in the world. The water is so clear, it was stunning. 

Our campsite is in Collingwood, we backed up into our stop overlooking Farewell spit and the estuary and had dinner on the picnic bench. This is the life!

No comments: