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Rolling along the wine trail

BY READERS DIGEST

1st Jan 2015 Travel

Rolling along the wine trail

Two days among the vines and tasting rooms of New Zealand’s premier wine region

By mid-morning, light breezes have swept away the dawn overcast, leaving only some wispy clouds. It’s February—high summer in New Zealand—and the scent of flowering lavender is in the air. My husband and I are in the Marlborough wine region, located at the top of the South Island, and we’re about to start two days of cycling in the vineyards. 

“Ready?” says Jo Hill, handing us a map to nearby cellar doors (as tasting rooms are called here). About 40 of Marlborough’s 140 or so wineries are open to the public—many are in easy cycling range—but Jo suggests we visit at most five a day. “By the fifth winery, your taste buds are shot,” she explains. 

Jo and her husband Steve own Wine Tours by Bike in Renwick. The village is in the broad Wairau Valley, home to many family-owned and some corporate wineries, such as Cloudy Bay. Her map lays out a 12-mile circuit for the day. I hope I’m up to it—it’s been a while since I spent that much time on a bicycle. “There’s just one wee hill,” she says as we leave.

Glen and I push off to a wobbly start on the crunchy gravel driveway and turn our sturdy, three-speed bikes onto a quiet country road—already among grape vines.

Today, the Marlborough wine region—made up of the Wairau Valley, Southern Valleys and Awatere subregions—is known around the world for its sauvignon blanc—savvy, as the locals call it. But it wasn’t always so. This was farming country in 1973, when Frank Yukich of Montana Winery in Auckland bought land south of Renwick and planted vines. Among the grape varieties he tested was sauvignon blanc. Marlborough’s sunny days and cool nights created a surprisingly pungent wine, tangy and aromatic, soon to fulfil Yukich’s prediction, “Wines from here will become world-famous.”

In 1979, the year Yukich released his first sauvignon blanc vintage, a young Irishman working in the liquor business in Christchurch, Ernie Hunter, also planted sauvignon blanc in the region. In 1986 he entered his wine in the Sunday Times Vintage Festival in London—and won both the gold medal and the popular vote. It stunned the wine world.

 

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“New Zealand sauvignon blanc was so different, it surprised everyone,” says Jane Hunter, an internationally respected vintner who’s managed Hunter’s winery since her husband’s death in 1987. “It was our oak-aged sauvignon blanc,” she adds. “Back then the sauvignon blanc was really grassy—quite greenish and very overpowering.” Ageing it in oak barrels created a more mellow and elegant wine, she explained. Hunter’s Wines won the competition three years in a row.

The trophies were game-changing for New Zealand wines. “There had been nothing new in the world of wine for centuries,” says Tessa Nicholson, a reputed New Zealand wine writer. “Now it’s a worldwide phenomenon.” It’s gone from nothing to more £678m in wine exports.”

“Is this the wee hill Jo warned us about?” I wonder aloud, as a half-hour later I’m pedalling hard to get up the short but steep hill to Seresin Estate.

But it’s worth it. At the top is a horse-drawn wagon, and Melissa Rae, who’s originally from Lapland but has worked at Seresin for ten years, invites us on board. She tells us Seresin’s vineyards are among a handful in Marlborough to be certified biodynamic. It’s more restrictive than organic, she explains. “If we take anything from the land we put it back, that’s the principle.” To qualify, vineyards must be farmed in a way that promotes soil health. Every-thing from mulch and fertilisers to sprays are made on the estate. 

At the small cellar door, manager Fran Broad has lined up four wines on the antique wood counter for us to taste. She pours the sauvignon blanc, which slides over our palates with a tangy crispness—delicious! The chardonnay, riesling and pinot noir—the latter a Marlborough up-and-comer—are also exceptional.  

Fifteen minutes later we’re back on our bikes. We veer onto a picturesque lane and cross a stream edged with old willow trees to arrive at Bladen Wines’ cellar door, a sheltered stand on an expansive lawn. Picnic tables and lounge chairs under silver birch trees look inviting. Owners Dave and Christine Macdonald arrived in Marl-borough in 1989, part of a wave of small wineries that started up after Ernie Hunter’s success.

Christine, a cheerful brunette in her 50s, poured us an gewürztraminer, sweeter than the savvies and creamy on the palate. “We’re quite chuffed with this gewürz,” Christine says with a smile, adding that Cuisine, one of New Zealand’s top food magazines, rated it second among 33 New Zealand gewürztraminer wines. 

She and Dave were in their 20s, living in Wellington and working in jobs a world away from wine when they “got caught up in the fire that was happening here”, she says. 

“We bought this land off a farmer,” Christine continues. “It was stony and dry.” Their eight hectares hadn’t been cultivated in years. They commuted from Wellington to Marlborough on weekends for three years, planting gewürztraminer, semillon and pinot gris grapes. “The varieties we liked to drink,” she says. They later added riesling and sauvignon blanc.

They banded together in a trading company with other small wineries and went to international fairs to pro-mote Marlborough wines. “That was the best thing that happened for all of us,” she added. “This industry has been amazing, watching it grow the way it has,” she says.

So far everyone we’d met had proven Steve Hill right when he had told us, “The beauty of this region is everyone’s small enough that they’re interested in meeting people and passionate about what they do!”

 

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By the time we leave Bladen, it’s midday, and we head north to Rapaura Road, known as the “Golden Mile” for the dozen-plus wineries on it. We work up an appetite cycling the mile or so to our next stop, Wairau River Wines, and it has a restaurant.

Passing through the winery’s large and modern cellar door, we enter a busy dining room with a contemporary vibe that looks more Manhattan than rural New Zealand. We’re shown to a table on a covered patio overlooking a manicured lawn.

The menu has crowd-pleasing appeal—curry, pizza and burgers—all with a gourmet flair. We order the house speciality: a double-baked blue-cheese soufflé, with rocket, pear and walnut salad—and, of course, a glass of pinot gris. The soufflé was light and luscious and the wine a perfect pairing. We linger over a second glass. 

The winery’s owners, Phil and Chris Rose, farmed lucerne and alfalfa on the family farm here in the 1970s, says marketing executive Gemma Lyons. It took a court battle for the Roses to get permission from the county council to plant grapes. Farmers objected to the change in use of the land, the forestry industry feared they wouldn’t be able to use sprays if grapes were growing nearby, and church groups objected to alcohol.

We visited two more wineries that afternoon, ending the day at Te Whare Ra (Maori for “house in the sun”). Anna Flowerday, 42, a tall brunette with a quick way of speaking, greeted us at the small cellar door.

She and her husband Jason, 38, both from wine-making families, bought the 14-hectare wine estate 12 years ago. Since then they’ve had two sets of twins, now 12 and nine. “We’re pretty good with multitasking around here,” she says with a smile.

Te Whare Ra was named “Winery of the Year” for 2014 by Raymond Chan Wine Reviews. A New Zealander with more than two decades of wine judging, retailing and writing experience, Chan called Te Whare Ra the “modern and young face of wine-growing in New Zealand”, and cited its wines and respect for the environment.

“That’s what gets me out of bed in the morning,” says Anna. “I want to be the best. If people have only got one day and can only see five wineries, I want to be on that list.”

After a day of touring cellar doors, it was a delight to enter Arbour, an independent restaurant where we’d enjoy the finest meal of our trip. Located in a low-slung modern building tucked between vineyards, the dining room had a high ceiling and a décor in shades of grey, green and silver—a cool, crisp ambience warmed by the smiles of the polite serving staff.

We ordered the four-course prix fixe menu, named “Just Feed Me”. The feast included a combination of vegetables and sauces with local Ora King salmon and Cloudy Bay clams, pork-neck medallions and beef sirloin, served with wine, of course! First a glass of delightful sauvignon blanc, next a fine pinot noir. Chocolate mousse with a blueberry-raspberry coulis and a glass of imported port was a divine finish. 

Our second day was to be more relaxed than the first. Jo gave us a new map that took us back to the Golden Mile to visit wineries, then to lunch at the bistro at Hans Herzog Estate. 

We dined on fresh skate and lamb on a sun-dappled terrace under the plane trees—I felt transported to Provence. Therese Herzog, in her 50s, with a smile for everyone and an ebullient laugh, runs the winery bistro and restaurant. Before they moved to Marl-borough, she and Hans had owned a successful winery and Michelin-starred restaurant in Switzerland. 

For several years they’d divided their time between the two countries. “But after two vintages, Hans said, ‘Why do we make wines in Switzerland? This vineyard is performing better than I ever imagined.’ ”

The couple moved to New Zealand in 1999 and started the restaurant soon after arriving. Their chef, Louis Schindler, immigrated with them. “Who else would I have?” she says. “This is how we show our wines—they’re food wines.”

 

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After lunch, we cycled two miles to Nautilus Estate—where assistant wine-maker Tim Ritchie gave us a tour of the tank room—and then it was a short ride to our last stop, the pretty gardens and cellar of Framingham Wines. Every wine we’d tasted over our two days had been exceptional. At Framingham, manager Maureen Hamilton surprised us with a ten-year-old riesling that was unexpectedly dry and flavourful, a perfect way to end our tour.

On the way back to the bike shop, Glen and I savoured the beautiful countryside. All was still. It was as if the vintners—and the grapes themselves—were collectively holding their breath before the next 24/7 harvest frenzy, less than a month away.

 

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