Wine on Waiheke – 21/1/07

Christine had been super-organised and booked the 3 of us on a winery tour around Waiheke Island, 35mins away by ferry. We visited 3 vineyards in all – Kennedy Point, Obsidian and Mudbrick - only a fraction of the island’s 26 wineries. This was the first time that I’d done any proper wine tasting and I got tiddly quite quickly, as I felt bad about pouring wine away in front of the owners.

In between tastings and trying to sober up by eating as much complimentary cheese and crackers as possible, I made two baby steps forward in my knowledge of wines. I now know that I don't like any red wine that contains shiraz (or syrah as they called it), but I did like Kennedy Point's lovely sauvignon blanc made from Marlborough grapes, one of NZ's most famous wine-growing regions on the South Island. I ended up buying a bottle.

At Obsidian, virtually all of the red wines for sampling had some syrah blended in, so I whiled away the time attempting to take a picture of Manny, the resident bird dog. Christine helped out by feeding him some cheese so that he actually stood still for more than 2 seconds at a time.

When we arrived back at the ferry terminal, we walked over to the neighbouring wharf to see if the Soren Larsen had returned from her previous journey. She looked much smaller than expected, and we started wondering if there really would be enough room for us all to sleep on it, including the crew.

The evening was pretty quiet – I spent a few hours in the internet café writing up my account of the Cape Reinga day trip, and then repacked all my bags so that I could leave most of my luggage at the hotel. In the end I gave up on minimal packing and took my main bag with me, leaving behind the rucksack. This was 90% filled by just 2 items - my bulky winter fleece, wrapped carefully around my bottle of sav blanc.