June 2 – 3, 2016
After a rest at the hotel we headed out again, driving amidst the endless vineyards on the Wairau plains. Our first stop was a winery called Gibson Bridge. While Blenheim is home to many of the biggest wineries in New Zealand, it also has its share of mid-size places and even small, family-run wineries. Gibson is in the last category.
When we stepped in, one of the owners came in from pruning vines–she and her husband do most of the work themselves. We admired the way she’d decorated their cellar door in sort of a bordello style that’s fun and quite fetching. The wines, mostly variations of pinot gris, were good and we found one we loved. Her husband appeared with their beautiful wiemaraner so we got to chat with him and pet the dog. Smaller wineries nearly always have at least one dog.
Our next winery was Forrest, yet another beautiful building with lots of barn beams, wood, glass and stone, and yet more canine greeters to give us a dose of doggy love. The dogs are one of our favorite parts of visiting wineries! We headed to a very nice room to do the tasting, picking six wines from their extended list for a tasting flight, which we then took to a seat by the windows to enjoy. We love tasting wine this way: we can go at our own pace and discuss the wines freely. (After all, you don’t want to say anything negative in front of the person who’s pouring the wine even if they only work there.) In this case, we loved at least two of the wines enough to make a purchase.
Our final winery of the day was Framingham Wines, a pretty winery with a courtyard, an appealing tasting area, a dog (of course), and some very nice white wines (yes, a couple came home with us–we had quite a collection by the end of the day).
Finished for the day, we picked up our new favorite light dinner at the supermarket: hot-smoked salmon, aioli, and a baguette. We’ve found that slicing up the baguette, spreading each round with the aioli, and topping it with some smoked salmon makes a wonderful combination. Of course we had one of our new wines to go with it.
Aside from exploring a new area, it’s such a treat to stay in a hotel and watch cable TV, stuff like Deadliest Catch, Ice Road Truckers, Pawn Stars, Storage Wars, Mythbusters, and other such shows. Will Sig meet his crab quota? Will the newbie truck driver make it through the icy pass? Will the old antique gun be worth anything? Will one of the storage units make a big payoff, and is it possible to spontaneously combust? These are the burning questions that get answered during our hotel stays. –Cyndi (You can click to enlarge/scroll through any of the photo galleries above).
