June 2 – 3, 2016
With our next possible weather window a week away, we decided to take advantage of our extra time in Nelson and visit an area we hadn’t yet gotten to: Blenheim.
Blenheim is a big-gun wine area, sort of the Napa Valley of the South Island. It’s about a half hour drive from Picton or Havelock, or an hour and a half from Nelson. They make many wine varietals, but their big claim to fame is sauvignon blanc–no place on this planet does better sauvignon blancs than New Zealand, and no place in New Zealand does better sauvignon blancs than Blenheim..
Technically Blenheim is considered part of the Marlborough Sounds area, but in reality it couldn’t be more different. While the Sounds are mountainous, forested, and subject to passing cloudy fronts, Blenheim lies across the mostly-flat Wairau Plains, all golden and grassy and surrounded by its signature dry hills. It’s known for having warm, dry summers and even now in the fall it felt blissfully warm and sunny.
Below, a few photos of the Wairau Plains. (click to enlarge and scroll through any of the galleries that follow).
As usual, like a kid in a candy store, I had to pick and choose among the many appealing options of places to visit. We’d only have two days here and I wanted to make the most of them. Luckily many of the wineries are close together (if traveling by car), and a few of them were on the way to our hotel.
We started with the Allan Scott Family Winemakers. Not surprisingly, the cellar door was beautiful (this is, after all, serious wine country), all modern and wood, the manicured grounds planted with dry-area plants. The tasting was very reasonable, $2 for 3 wines plus champagne, refundable with a purchase. (Most wineries will charge for tastings that become free if you make a purchase.) Because Rich was the designated driver, I did the tastings, but he enjoyed smelling and a few sips of my wine. We had agreed not to do any mercy buys today, only to purchase the good stuff. Well, we had good stuff here so we bought a couple of bottles. Free tastings, yay! Fun purchases to bring home, yay! A beautiful place and an afternoon wine buzz, yay!
Next up was Cloudy Bay, one of the biggest winemakers in New Zealand and conveniently across the street from Allan Scott. More beautiful grounds, another beautiful building with lots of big wood beams and light wood, and a fire burning in the fireplace. Glass walls looked into a cellar filled with wine barrels and poster-sized photos of the vineyards. This was a showplace, and it was done very well. It was $10 for the tasting but $5 with purchase, and I should mention that the person pouring the wines was generous. We had not planned on buying wine here, but the Te Koko sauvignon blanc grabbed us and wouldn’t let go (damn you, Te Koko, making us purchase more wine against our will!)
Our next winery would be Brancott, another big player in the New Zealand wine business and a worthwhile-sounding place to stop for lunch. While Blenheim is mostly flat, a few wineries sit on hills and Brancott is one of them. The parking area is down the hill, and they’ve made the walk up to the winery into a nature walk (although apparently they’ll come get you in a golf cart if you’re not up for the climb). Walking up that hill in the warm sunlight, views of vineyards and golden grass around us, mountains the distance, felt like a wine country publicist’s dream. The winery building itself was a long and low glass-walled building with views out over the surrounding Wairau plains.
We were seated next to one of the windows and were able to order a flight of wines for tasting along with our sweet potato pie and beef brisket choices for lunch. All of it: the scenery, the view, the building, the food, the service and the wine, was amazing. This is my favorite part of a wine county experience: being lulled into a state of happy relaxation from the tastings, after which you really take in your beautiful surroundings and, often as not, extra-good food.
Because we buy Brancott all the time we didn’t think we’d be making any purchases, but lo and behold they had one of our favorites that had disappeared from grocery store shelves (it just doesn’t sell well enough and will probably go away). So, we brought some of the Living Land series home with us, figuring this endangered species would be our rescue wine of the day.
After lunch we took a special path down the hill to see the winery’s Karearea (New Zealand falcons) in an aviary below the winery. One bird had been rescued after being badly injured–a run in with a car, I think–and while she’s OK now, she’s not fit to live in the wild again. The other bird has been brought in to be her companion.
It was interesting to read the informative panels explaining what skilled and able hunters falcons are compared to fat, lazy hawks who just glide around on air currents and look for easy meals of carrion. Apparently these panels were written by a falcon! In any case, we came away appreciating the magnificence of falcons and for a long time couldn’t help but think “fat lazy birds” when we’d see huge hawks soaring above us. The falcons had an excellent publicist! Below, the falcons . . .
And a photo of a lazy, good-for-nothing hawk looking for an easy meal of road kill while falcons (not visible but I’m sure they’re around) remain hard at work doing real hunting 🙂
After Brancott we went to check into the Chateau Marlborough. The place puts up a good front: pretty and stylish, but it really is more motel than hotel at heart. No matter, it was clean and comfortable and a good deal. And it seems from the display in the lobby that they, too, are falcon fans. The poor hawks just can’t catch a break in this neck of the woods.
After taking a rest, we headed out to see more three more wineries before calling it a day.–Cyndi  (Click to enlarge/scroll through any of the photo galleries above.)
