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Location Date Wed, 12 October 2011
1318410060 Tue, 11 October 2011 1318349220
In case we had possibly forgotten, the view from our window, vineyards as far as the eye can see, would soon remind us that we are right in the middle of wine making country. At 10 am our guide and driver for the day, Ryan, collected us in a Mercedes 7 series car. Ready to do wine tasting in style!!
Our first stop was at TerraVin, a lovely boutique winery up in the hills. After inspecting the vines and hearing about the loving care that goes into production we got round to the most important part which was tasting the wines. They were amazingly good, especially the Te Ahu (a new direction for Sauvignon Blanc) and the Cabernet Merlot Malbec. Having promised ourselves not to buy any today we succumbed and bought some! They are great wines but it is only a small winery so production is not huge. However, you can experience some of their wines at places such as Raffles in Singapore and Gordon Ramsay restaurants.
We moved on to the Auntsfield Estate which was the earliest home of wine production in the Marlborough region started, believe it or not, by a Scottish sheep farmer from Dundee! After tasting some lovely wines we moved on to Wither Hills. This was a much larger enterprise and, before tasting their wines, we were able to have a look at their vine library where they have an example of most types of vine from around the world growing side by side. We took time out to have a lovely lunch here, accompanied by some of their excellent Gewurztraminer which was a cellar release so not to be found anywhere else.
The afternoon saw us visiting iconic Cloudy Bay where the wines were excellent as is to be expected and we were amongst the first in the world to taste a couple of wines which were only released three days ago. We also visited Hunters' winery where we chatted with Jane Hunter who we last saw in September speaking at a wine dinner at the FCC in Hong Kong.
We rounded off the day with a visit to Bouldevines, another boutique winery where we tasted their wares, but we were slowing down a bit by now and actually bought coffees to take back with us to aid recovery!
It was a fun and informative day amongst some of our favourite wines. Many thanks to Ryan and all the lovely people we met along the way!
Our first stop was at TerraVin, a lovely boutique winery up in the hills. After inspecting the vines and hearing about the loving care that goes into production we got round to the most important part which was tasting the wines. They were amazingly good, especially the Te Ahu (a new direction for Sauvignon Blanc) and the Cabernet Merlot Malbec. Having promised ourselves not to buy any today we succumbed and bought some! They are great wines but it is only a small winery so production is not huge. However, you can experience some of their wines at places such as Raffles in Singapore and Gordon Ramsay restaurants.
We moved on to the Auntsfield Estate which was the earliest home of wine production in the Marlborough region started, believe it or not, by a Scottish sheep farmer from Dundee! After tasting some lovely wines we moved on to Wither Hills. This was a much larger enterprise and, before tasting their wines, we were able to have a look at their vine library where they have an example of most types of vine from around the world growing side by side. We took time out to have a lovely lunch here, accompanied by some of their excellent Gewurztraminer which was a cellar release so not to be found anywhere else.
The afternoon saw us visiting iconic Cloudy Bay where the wines were excellent as is to be expected and we were amongst the first in the world to taste a couple of wines which were only released three days ago. We also visited Hunters' winery where we chatted with Jane Hunter who we last saw in September speaking at a wine dinner at the FCC in Hong Kong.
We rounded off the day with a visit to Bouldevines, another boutique winery where we tasted their wares, but we were slowing down a bit by now and actually bought coffees to take back with us to aid recovery!
It was a fun and informative day amongst some of our favourite wines. Many thanks to Ryan and all the lovely people we met along the way!
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