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Wine Tasting in Malborough, NZ

Jan 16, 2013 | Uncategorized | 0 comments

A major ‘To do…’ for me in New Zealand was to go wine tasting in the Malborough region. A joke within my group of friends if you have a bad day, or are going on a night out, is to have ‘a nice glass of New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc’.

On our way from the Musterer’s Hut to Kaikoura we stopped by in Blenheim to visit a few wineries. Unfortunately none of us looked too hot after our two nights roughing it! 
First stop was Cloudy Bay, they sell very nice, quite expensive wine in the UK so I was excited to try some of their wines that I hadn’t had before. 
I loved that the view from the Winery was the same as the picture on the bottle. I’m not sure why I didn’t think it would be!! 
We tried 6 wines there in total, including a Sauvignon Blanc, a NV Brut, a Merlot, and a Riesling. Annoyingly my tasting notes were involved in a waterlogged bag disaster and so did not survive so I can’t remember more about our tasting, other than I really liked the NV Brut, and the 2010 Sauvignon Blanc. Our first two tastings were free, then we paid another $5 for 4 tastings of our choice.

Our next stop was Seresin, an organic and bio-organic winery.

Here we paid $5 for 6 tastings, including a Momento Riesling, a 2010 Pinot Gris, a 2010 Chardonnay, a 2010 Sauvignon Blanc, and a 2009 Gewurztraminer. I hadn’t tried a Gewurztraminer before, and I found it a bit more floral that I like in a white wine. Very rosy.

Our final stop was at Brancott Estate, we were advised that they had an amazing restaurant with a brilliant view over their vineyards. We were not disappointed!

We enjoyed some great food and some amazing wine. I also discovered my favourite wine of the holiday; Sauvignon Gris. Apparently it is an old grape from Bordeaux, not a mix between Sauvignon Blanc and Pinot Gris. I loved the ‘R’ estate Sauvignon Gris, and had a glass with lunch, as well as buying a bottle to take with us to Kaikoura.

I loved our wine tasting day, and would definitely recommend it to anyone travelling to New Zealand. We were lucky enough that my Mum offered not to drink too much and drive us between vineyards, although we saw quite a few people cycling and walking between vineyards- a good way to burn it off I suppose!

I am really annoyed that you can’t get Brancott Estate R Sauvignon Gris in the UK, I am going to be on the hunt for an equivalent! Any suggestions? 

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