Wednesday | February 15, 2017
The highlight of today was wine – and lots of wine. We headed out relatively early in the day on the way to three different wineries. We were to taste wines at two and have lunch at the third.
Our guide was Hamesh. As we drove, he told us a few things about this part of the country.
The port is covered with 220,000 shipping containers full of apples at present. This is harvest time and the average apple tree yields six hundred apples. 4000 people from China are imported to pick the apples by hand. It was interesting to learn that sheep are allowed in the apple orchard shortly before harvest time. That is because the sheep will nibble all the leaves off the bunches, making the apples easier to pack. Because the sheep don’t like sugar, that makes it a safe exercise.
He also told us about the decline of the wool industry here. As I reported the other day, the sheep population in New Zealand has reduced dramatically. The reason for that– which I should’ve thought of, but didn’t – was the advent of wood and tile flooring. Before that, everyone’s home, almost around the world, was made of wool carpet on dirt floors.
All the timber we see being loaded on the docks is pine.
But again, it's sad to see so much deforestation, even if they do say the trees are being replaced (which is doubtful).
All the beaches here are black. That is because they are made of volcanic residue, as opposed to the beautiful white sands we are used to at home.
This region of the country has the second-largest wine industry in New Zealand. The whites that are grown here include Pinot Gris, Chardonnay, and Viognier. Although it is really too warm to grow pinto noir, it is grown here – but we didn’t much care for the wines. On the other hand, Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, and Malbec all thrive here.
But with all those wines, New Zealand is only responsible for 1.5% of the world’s wine product.
Finally, we arrived at our first winery, Trinity Hill, where we sampled many wines.
The Homage was their best and most expensive one. But I wouldn’t pay $150US for a 2015 wine in 2016.
Out of the vineyard, we had a bit of a tour from Damon. (I loved his Yankees hat!) He explained that the vineyard and the neighboring area, is all on a tactonic plate. Hence the name of the region, Greywacke , which means rock.
Interestingly, all the vineyards are covered with white netting to keep the birds away.
It was at this point that one of the moronic people with us asked if shooting birds was effective. I couldn’t help myself and responded if you kill them it is; dead birds usually don’t eat grapes.
We then drove across the street to another single estate vineyard, TeAwa.
The wines were nice, but even better–they had a table set for us.
And they fed us! The olive oil was hard to resist…
Outside in the vineyard, we tasted several pleasant wines, but nothing we thought worth purchasing. Ollie, the viniculturalist, was our guide. The vineyard produces 15,000 cases a year. Their KC Ariki was a signature wine, but was not available for sale. The Nga Kiri Kiri was a cabernet/merlot blend (97/3%), at $150. Ollie wanted us to swirl the wine, but it only got weaker when I did that.
Yes, lovely pants, right? But why is my glass empty?!
Finally, we drove down the road just a little bit and arrived at the Mission Estate winery. Established in 1851 by pioneering French missionaries, it is New Zealand’s oldest winery and the birthplace of New Zealand wine.
There, we had a sumptuous lunch in a room with equally remarkable views.
We had an unremarkable bus ride back to the ship, but our fun for the day was not over.
We didn’t have much time to relax before dinner, because we had reserved a rear table in East to introduce our friends to Captain Dag. We had easy conversation and East’s usual tasty fare before the Captain proceeded to his duties regarding our sail out this evening.
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