Bacchanalia in Blenheim

After a few days of solo travel in Auckland, I was so excited to connect with my fellow travelers in Blenheim, base for the wine region of Marlborough (this area accounts for 75% of the country's wine production and 85% of its wine exports). We arrived just in time for the Marlborough Food & Wine Festival, which was quite the day drinking event! We arrived at 11am and immediately began sampling several local, small batch (and a few more commercial) vintages of Sauvingnon Blanc, Pinot Gris, Rose, some failed attempts at Albarino, "bubbles", and Pinot Noir. The live entertainment was great, the "kewl" ambiance was strong, and the food trucks were good.

The next day (after a few ibuprofen), we tried our hand at another day of day-drinking with the added level of difficulty of cycling. We rented bikes, were given a map with instructions from the local barista as well as the bike rental guy on the "Best Vineyard Tour", "Best Rose", "Best Pinot Gris", and the "Best Gin" (no, that's not a typo!) and headed on a loop that took us about 6 hours. It was amazing just how many of these awesome places were so close together. The "Best Vineyard Tour" at Bladen Vineyards was indeed fabulous. The passion of the vintner, son of the original owner, was so infectious. He was a self-described "dirt nerd". None of us had ever had a winery tour that was so focused on the vines vs. the production. We sampled 5 wines total, but two of them were sampled amongst the vines. He also cut off grapes for us to sample, which was also a first for all of us (Pinot Gris grapes are delicious!). Even though we were pretty toasted from 11am on, the terrain was flat and the bike lanes were mostly off road, so it was a great experience!

For any of you who followed our Chile trip, I was amused that this area of New Zealand is exactly the same latitude of Fruttilar (41 degrees South).Read more