Martinborough

June 18, 2011

I can’t believe it’s that late in June already!  Crazy!

It rained this morning on my walk to the train station.  The rain was a lot stronger than I thought it would be.  I wanted to take the street that my friends and I often used when we stayed at Downtown Backpackers.  The only problem with this street is that there are virtually no overhangs on the street.  So I was nearly always walking in the rain.  Whereas if I had gone on another street I probably would have been quite dry under all the overhangs that the shops have over the sidewalks.

So I was a wet dog when I got to the train station.  But I found my train just fine and I bought some dark chocolate kit kat bars to cheer me up.  I had a fifty minute ride out to Featherston.  I picked up the wine tour bus there much to the surprise of the tour leader.  She hadn’t been expecting me at all, but fortunately she always pulls up at the train station anyway just in case.

Her name was Naomi, the driver was Jacqui, and the two other wine tasters were a couple named Richard and Amberly.  They were from Wellington so I was the only foreigner on the trip.  The first winery was called Te Kairanga.  They have been having some financial problems and were recently bought out by an American wine company.

We had a nice lunch platter, a glass of wine, and some coffee at a cafe in town.  The platter wasn’t quite as nice as the platter I had on my Central Otago wine tour, but it was very good and pretty similar.  Richard and Amberly loved it.

Then we went to Muirlea Rise.  This winery was very small.  It’s basically run by this one man who’s father started the winery.  The Martinborough wine region is very new--only started about thirty years ago.  Sean, the winemaker, was very personal and took us through the whole wine making process and the business side of winemaking.  His tasting room was a homemade bench next to the wine bottling machine!

Next we visited Schubert wines.  This is a vineyard owned by a German couple and the girl who took us through the wine tasting is a German here on a working holiday!  They had a delicious rose from 2010.  It was probably my favorite wine of the day.  Schubert exports to the US so look out for it!

Lastly we visited Murdoch James winery.  By this time I’d had so much wine that I didn’t feel like I could really “taste” the wine anymore.  So I just drank it by the fireplace and tried to concentrate on what everyone was talking about.

After visiting all the wineries our guides took us back to town for tea and a cheese platter.  Very yummy!  Before I knew it I was back at the train station in Featherston and getting back on the train to Wellington.  I almost immediately fell asleep.  I had a bit of a rude awakening when we got to Upper Hutt because a bunch of rugby fans got on the bus.  Apparently there is a huge game in town tonight.  After I exited the train I walked against the crowds heading to the match.  Because of this Wellington feels very quiet tonight.  Everyone is at the game!