Martinborough Wine Tour

This is Patrick- Molly has been working several weekends in a row, which is lame, but the tradeoff is that we got 3 weekdays off in a row. That meant that the fancy hotel with a claw-foot bathtub that would normally be way out of our price range, was 1/2 and therefore affordable. There was a door out to the veranda that overlooked the town square of the cute little town of Martinborough (pop. 1500). It is a weekend retreat for fancy Wellingtonians and since we are learning about wine, we thought that we would try and be fancy. No such luck, but we did have fun, and we are starting to learn a fair bit about the wine-making process. The best part about Martinborough is that there are approximately 30 wineries within walking distance of the town. Now as an budding lawyer would recognize, "walking distance" is a vague term and when you have visited 7 wineries and you are 3-4 miles away from town, it feels a lot further than it might some other time. With that being said, we had a brilliant day and most of the wineries we visited were free of other visitors and the servers were quite friendly and knowledgeable. We learned that the region had vines planted in the late 1800s but then all of the farmers pulled their vines up during the 1919 prohibition era similar to the U.S. and most vines weren't replanted until the late 1970s. Pretty interesting parallel.

Our trip was not entirely wine-filled. We each got in a nice run and enjoyed the amazing weather with the temp in the low 70s and not a cloud in the sky. It was the NZ I had hoped for!! I can understand why the grapes are so happy. We also managed to have a wonderful meal at Est that included a tasting of three different fresh olive oils, mussels, taraki (fish), and lemon broulee! And of course there was wine- we ordered the wine tasting that included 4 local varieties that are awaiting Molly in the photo.

We also managed to go for a hike along the coast, which is what you will see in the photos- The Pinnacles, which were one of the Valley of Dooms scenes in Lord of the Rings. It was quite creepy and aptly named. The coastal drive to get to the Pinnacles was also gorgeous as you can see in the photo.

While it was a far cry from my man trip, this was fun in a whole new way- and as the McDonald's commercial goes, just a bit fancy. Cheers!