We were a little slow this morning and pulled out of the campsite a little late at 10:20am. We had a two hour drive to Blenheim, which is a city in the Marlborough region which is becoming famous for their wine. Our first stop was the Montana Brancott winery. We pulled in at 12:30 and the next tour started in at 1pm, so we had a quick lunch in our camper of leftover pizza before the tour started. We then enjoyed a great tour which included the history of the winery, how they make wine, and some audio/video clips about the four seasons at the winery and their champagne. The wine that they produce is all called Montana wine unless it is exported to the US, where it is usually called Brancott wine. This is because they don’t want Americans to confuse their name with the US state, and think that it’s from Montana, USA. The only type of wine that they don’t call Brancott in the states is their Stoneleigh wine brand, which would cause no confusion. We looked at some of their machinery and barrels, but there was no one working in those areas because the grapes grow during the summer and are picked in March and April. They handpick 20% of their grapes for the very top wines, and the rest they pick with machines. We had 4 wine tastings after the tour. We really liked their Stoneleigh 2005 Sauvignon Blanc, and also their Reserve Chardonnay. Our tour guide told us the reasoning behind some of the different tasting methods, and that really helped us since we didn’t really know what we were doing. After the two white wines, the Merlot’s taste was a bit of a shock, but we finished it off easily with a desert wine. We shopped around their nice store and picked up a few gifts, and then it was off to visit more wineries. We had planned to do the rest of the wineries by bike, but we were surprised by the road conditions around the area. We were expecting light traffic and short distances, but the wineries were all off a few highways, and there were a lot of trucks and cars driving very fast. Plus there was no good bike lane, just a gravel shoulder and it was a bit colder and windier than was comfortable. This was disappointing, but we still had a good time exploring the region in our camper. We stopped in at the Blenheim info center and got some recommendations on a few wineries, and added to this list some of others that we wanted to visit ourselves. Our first stop was Villa Maria. This is labeled “New Zealand’s Most Awarded” vineyard, and they certainly had the wines to back it up. The tastings were delicious and we wished we could buy more of their wine, but again we are very limited by what we can carry. Also, shipping wine from these vineyards back to the states is very expensive, for one because of the distance, but also the U.S. has pretty harsh import laws in order to protect the domestic wine business. We bought one bottle for Nathan’s Dad, and then took note of some others that we could buy back in the States. Our next stop was a winery recommended by the info center called Mudhouse. Our host here was very pregnant, but she happily led us through about 6 tastings of all different kinds. Susan really liked their Sauvignon Blanc, and we grabbed a brochure so we could remember the place. As we were leaving we were surprised to see a couple with the wife expecting getting ready to do some wine tastings. We hope that doesn’t affect the baby! Our next stop and last stop was St. Clair, but it was already 4:55pm when we walked out the door of Mudhouse, and St. Clair closed at 5, so our visits were cut a little short. We still had tasted plenty of wines, and since we were driving we didn’t want to have too much. We drove on to Picton and checked in at the Top 10, and then walked into the city to use the internet. We printed out our travel voucher for the inter-island ferry for the following day, and also found out that the Michigan game would be broadcast on ESPN GamePlan only for international viewers. This was amazing news since only one of the Michigan games had been broadcast all year, and we had been stuck listening to the audio with no video to go along with it. Also, we were going to be in Wellington for the game, and they have an amazing wireless network all around the city. It looks like we’ll be able to see the game!! We walked back to the camp, and got things ready for our dinner. We decided that we were a little low on veggies in our diet, so we made some teriyaki pork stir-fry with capsicum, asparagus, broccoli, and carrots. After dinner we read and relaxed with some cheese and crackers before falling asleep
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