The Finer Drinks of Life

Feeling much more rested on the 13^th after a solid night of sleep in real beds in Nelson, Suzanne and I packed up our stuff, left it in the hostel and set off to explore the town of Nelson, specifically hoping to see the Saturday market. The market is like any other, filled with local produce, crafts, preserves and the odd food cart. We explored the rows and grabbed a bite to eat at an Asian food cart. We sampled the preserves and were quite taken with some homemade liquorice which we bought to munch on while browsing. We treated ourselves to a cone of Penguino Ice Cream, an award winning locally produced variety – it was good, but overpriced and not quite Cows good. We wandered back to the hostel, got our gear, walked a few blocks to the highway and we were off for our next destination, Blenheim. It took 15 minutes this time as the traffic was faster here, but a 17 year old ‘dude’ stopped and we piled in. He was going half way, and was happy for the company. He did have to make a stop at his house to grab some ‘party supplies’ and since he didn’t want his father to know he picked up hitchhikers, we waited in a small town while he went home. We attempted to get another ride, but the only person to stop was a potentially stoned German who could take us only a little distance “if you’ve got ten bucks...” We thanked him, said we would wait for the next car, and soon our young friend was back with us. He was quite proud of the speaker system in his car, but was a surprisingly responsible driver. He wanted to demonstrate the full power of the bass in his car, and pulled over to the side of the road to do so, aware that it was quite distracting to manage all that and drive at the same time. Sure, it might be silly (in some people’s opinion) to aspire to having a massive, ground shaking speaker system, but serious kudos to him for being responsible and safe about it. Dropping us off, we got our next ride in another 10-15 minutes with two English musicians touring New Zealand. They took us all the way to Blenheim and even dropped us off at our hostel, The Grapevine Backpackers.

Blenheim is in the Marlborough Sounds region, famous for its wines, especially Sauvignon blanc, and soon Pinot Noir also. We were spending two nights, and our second day we would be doing an all out wine sampling tour. The hostel has a veranda on a river so after a quick trip to the grocery store we had a healthy supper here before enjoying some cheese and crackers with a bottle of local wine – life as a backpacker can be hard! We woke on the 14^th and had ourselves a hearty breakfast of bacon, eggs, and toast before renting bikes from the hostel (only $15 for the whole day!) and setting off down the highway 10km to Renwick, the literal centre of wine production in the area. From here we visited three wineries with free open cellars to sample their best. Each winery tended to have a few Sauvignon blanc varieties, a Pinot Noir, a Chardonnay, and a few had a German wine which I cannot remember the name of. We went to the Arawai River Winery for lunch where I had delicious mussel chowder with a glass of Sauvignon blanc. Suzanne had a blue cheese soufflé and opted for the Chardonnay. From here we did another couple wineries before heading back to the hostel. All in all I estimate we sampled around 30 different wines from five wineries, and we didn’t spit one!

Lunch was so late neither of us was in the mood for dinner, so I made a slightly nutritious dessert later in the evening to compensate. Toffee covering sliced apples and brie cheese, baked in the oven until the brie melted was a delicious treat which filled us and left our palates happy.

I had planned to do Blenheim since I started checking out destinations in New Zealand, excited to sample the wines. It was great to have someone to sample with and we both had a fun time pretending to be a bit more posh than we really are and somewhat overstating our knowledge of wine. It was our observation that those who spoke more knowledgeably or looked more posh were given good samples of the wines, while the less informed (anyone else with me?) were given mere drops in the glass for tasting. After a winery or two we had some of the lingo down and were able to bluff our way through seeming well studied on the matter. The other tasters were a funny mix of backpackers and older moneybags, one of whom ordered “a bottle of that, two of that...no, make that three, and four bottles of that one” without a second glance. We did buy a bottle of wine at the end of the day so we did our part for the Marlborough Sounds wine region. Not only was Blenheim a stop for indulging in the finer drinks, but also food and it was a treat to the palate that I have neglected since Europe (especially Italy) and was long overdue. Blenheim was my last stop on the South Island before heading up to Picton (again) and catching the ferry to Wellington with Suzanne. I was happy that my last experience with the South Island was as pleasant as it was.