Arrived in Blenheim, South Island, Wednesday 16 Feb., in a 17 seater plane after what must be the shortest flight ever - 15 minutes in the air. Picked up our third rental car and drove the short distance to our B&B in the Marlborough town of Blenheim. Maison Grange is a truly charming French-style B&B, run by one of New Zealand's top cookery writers and her husband (in addition to running their small winery). The house is a converted wine-making building, and sits smack in the middle of 10 acres of pinot noir vines, in the heart of the Marlborough wine region, home of Cloudy Bay and many other fine wines, as we are to discover.

We have rented what they call the Winemaker's Apartment, which is a one bedroom flat with kitchen and its own entrance, on the upper level of the house. (Would make a great Granny flat.) It has a balcony looking over the fields and is beautifully decorated and furnished, very comfortable. Instantly we decide to have dinner one night at "home", to really enjoy the place, and get a break from restaurant meals.

After unpacking, we have plans to meet up with John Stace and his wife, Ros. John was formerly Vice Chairman of Amlin and Deputy Chairman of Lloyd's, and retired back to his home country of New Zealand a few years ago. They live in Hawkes Bay where we were for the past two days, but at present they are spending some time at their holiday home on the South Island, on Queen Charlotte's Sound. They had planned to be in the nearby town of Picton that day, so we met them at a coffee shop on the waterfront of this harbor town which resembles a 1930s English seaside resort. Their home is a 15 minute ride by boat from Picton or one hour's drive on very tortuous roads. The original plan was to get to their house on John's boat but there was some engine trouble so we ended up driving, following them by car back around the various bays, over the hills and hugging the coastline—an exhilarating if frightening ride. We had a lovely afternoon sitting and chatting on their verandah overlooking the very green and wooded hills that slope steeply down to the water, with a few other homes scattered along the shore. Idyllic, peaceful. Then we had to drive back, though John gave us an alternative route that cut out some of the hair-raising bits of our drive out there, and at the end rewarded ourselves with dinner at Hertzog, a winery started by a Swiss man who came out to NZ years ago. We chose the 3 course meal (over the 5 and 7 course versions), and followed their selected wine pairings. Food was very well done, but we weren't wild about the wines.

Thursday morning and our hosts at Maison Grange, John and Robyn Hedges, are preparing breakfast for us and their 4 other guests. Well, as we know, it's a very small world indeed, as a business colleague of mine (Robin), Andy di Loretto (formerly with AonBenfield US), and his wife Susan from Connecticut, were sitting at the breakfast table, as they were also guests at Maison Grange. We hadn't seen each other in over 10 years and used to do business together when I was working in Alabama. They were travelling with another couple through New Zealand, biking and walking trails.

As befits a food writer, Robyn's breakfast was really special, with just about everything either homemade or home grown, right down to the freshly made rose petal jelly infused with a hint of lavender. Homemade croissants and biscuits, and poached peaches and fresh fruit made for a healthy and delicious start to our day.

John grows grapes on 8 hectares of land surrounding the house. The grapes are sent to Saint Clair to be blended with other grapes into their Pinot Noir, however owing to his high standard Saint Clair have just announced they will be using his next crop to produce a separate cuvee. He very kindly made us a gift of a bottle of his pinot noir—a lovely wine which we enjoyed later that day.

After breakfast, Brian Sullivan arrives in his Jaguar Mk V1 (Glenna may not care what model it is but it is important to me). But my opinion of his car went downhill after I ripped my trousers on a jagged piece of metal; a bottle of Staedt Landt Chardonnay was some compensation as he knew I was in insurance and might sue. He is to be our guide for the day around the vineyards of Marlborough. I have some ideas of places I'd like to see, and he works around them as he plans out our day. We visit 5 vineyards today: Dry Hills, Auntsfield, Georges Michel, Staedt Landt and Cloudy Bay, as well as an olive oil tasting. The objective was to try out the smaller artisan wineries rather than the large concerns. So we achieved that but had to finish off with the iconic Cloudy Bay, as that was the one that really put Marlborough on the map in the 1980's, although it has now been surpassed by many other smaller concerns. Sadly it has lost its independence and joined the ranks of several others in selling out to bigger concerns, in this case LMVH. We had some great sauvignon blancs, Chardonnays and pinot noirs, and we were introduced to the New Zealand riesling which was very good and not at all like its German counterpart. Probably the two most fascinating were Auntsfield and Staete Landt.

Auntsfield was the first winery in the region and was set up by David Hern, the manager of a sheep station over 150 years ago. He lived in a small hut that the current owners have restored and furnished it as it would have been then. For the last hundred years or so the place reverted to a farm until the current owners decided to turn it into back into a winery. By a stroke of good fortune they discovered Mr Hern's original cellar, which had been dug into the hillside. They also found three of the old bottles, and added a few drops from one of the bottles to a special batch of their centenary wine. Back then he grew a muscat grape. What is even more interesting is that they have found clones of the original vines and are in the process of recreating his original vineyard in the same spot, right down to using the original wooden end posts which they had found being used by a neighbour as fencing posts. After a short private tour dodging the chickens and other farmyard animals, we were treated to an excellent tasting of a variety of their fine wines in a modern winery. I asked the young winemaker - Luke, a son of the owners, where they sell Auntsfield in the UK, and he said Harvey Nichols!

Staedt Landt, which was the original name Abel Tasman gave to New Zealand in 1642 in honour of his country, is run by a Dutch couple - Ruud and Dorien Maasdam. They took over a peach and cherry orchard about 15 years ago and now have 50 hectares producing wines from 4 varieties, pinot gris, pinot noir, chardonnay and sauvignon blanc. They are also one of the only single vineyard operations, in that they neither buy in grapes nor sell their grapes to others. All their wines were excellent and made more interesting by a tour of the vineyard by Dorien, who is so passionate about what they are doing. We didn't go away empty handed.

That night we stayed in and cooked dinner in the beautiful surroundings of Maison Grange. We shopped for groceries at the New World supermarket, which could be in America, though most brands are different. A light dinner was accompanied by a bottle of Staedt Landt Pinot Noir, of course. It is a wonderful evening with an exceptionally clear sky looking out across the the rows of vines as the sun sets and then we spot the Southern Cross. Our first sighting after many false attempts. Admittedly we had help from our host John who showed us what direction it was to be seen.

Tomorrow off to Christchurch, 250 miles down south.