My favorite wine region!

The view from our room - beautiful!!

I wake up with some excitement this morning - we're going on a private wine tour in Marlborough, New Zealand.  We've gone to (many) wine countries, but usually we make our own arrangements.  Being my favorite wine region, we decide to splurge and do a private tour.  It ends up being one of the best days of our trip!

Kerry doesn't just drive us to the wineries; at each location she's also arranged to have an attendant pour and explain the wine just for us - so we don't have to push through crowds of people to have a tasting.

As part of our tour we also get to have a wine blending experience.  I have sauvignon blanc wine from three different vineyards (Steve, pinot noir) and we create our own perfect wine.  It was all very scientific - we even had graduated cylinders to precisely measure out each wine. :)  I thought my final product was very good, but the attendant did not run right out to get the winemaker to try my wine, so I guess it won't be bottled any time soon.  We also learned that Prince William and Princess Kate ate lunch at the table/room where we did our wine blending.  I looked, but no one carved their initials in the table.

Winemakers at work!

We also had a three-course lunch at a winery restaurant, at a table overlooking the vineyards.  I needed the food to help with the wine consumption (for once we didn't share a tasting, since no one had to drive). 

Fun display at Cloudy Bay - they show you the different types of soil and explain how the grapes taste different from each one.  Then they also have a "guess the scent" area.  I didn't do so good at that - I'd know I knew what it was, but couldn't come up with the actual item that produced that scent!

Very close to harvest time!

We had another day to spend in Marlborough, so we were able to go around and try additional wineries.  Thanks to yesterday's guide, I learned Kim Crawford wines are owned by Drylands (which is really owned by Constellation Wines), and they also own Monkey Bay, which I consider my "house" wine back in the US (I haven't seen it in Japan).  It actually seemed like a lot of wineries are actually owned by big conglomerates, and aren't smaller productions (like in Walla Walla, WA).   Apparently, when sauvignon blanc gained a lot of popularity in the 80s, companies came in and bought out a lot of the family wineries.  Not to say there aren't small production labels - it's just they're owned by a bigger corporation.  Several of them are French, and a lot of the employees of the winery would be 20something-year-olds from France working during a semester break from college.  (Side note - in the US, Kim Crawford is everywhere, but it's not really sold in New Zealand, maybe you'd find it at the grocery store.)

We had lunch at another winery, in their "secret garden."  I think I could stay in Marlborough for a long, long time!

Secret garden selfie!

The secret garden