Another Weekend, Another Vineyard or 2

So, I had a crazy fantastic time visiting Destiny Bay Vineyards. It was pretty rainy and wet so I had left the camera at home. Sorry, but no pictures!! Destiny Bay is an uber exclusive vineyard that currently exports all of its wine to private collectors in the USA. Sean, the manager, is extremely friendly. They are not open to the public, but since I'm in the industry, he gave me a private tour and spent an hour with me explaining to me all about Destiny Bay. It's a very beautiful vineyard and the facility is perfectly clean and well cared for. After the extensive tour and explanation on why Destiny Bay wine retails for upwards of $275 per bottle, Sean invited me to do a barrel tasting. This means I was able to sample the unfinished wine straight from the barrel. I was a bit hesitant and worried it'd be sour and difficult to stomach. Even unfinished, it was great. I doubt I'll ever be lucky enough to sample the finished product, but it is recommended for about 10-15 years of cellaring. Extremely impressive.

Besides wine, Waiheke makes lots of superb and fancy olive oil. I was able to visit Rangihou Estate and do an olive oil tasting. It was a first for me and it was still fantastic. I was able to try 6 different varieties of olive oil as Anne explained the different textures and flavoring. When you do a wine tasting they give you a cracker/bread and water to cleanse the palate. In olive oil tasting, you are given a piece of apple to cleanse the palate. You can buy their olive oils and have it shipped to the US... expensive, yes, delicious, absolutely.

On Saturday, I continued my adventures around and squeezed in yet another vineyard. Te Whau Vineyard ("wh" is prononced similar to an "fff" sound) is a well-known vineyard because of their extensive wine list. They have over 600 wines on their wine list and Wine Spectator Magazine has rated their wine list as the top in NZ and in the world repeatedly. They produce an extremely limited amount of their wine. Their Chardonnay is only available in their restaurant or bar area. You can't even buy a bottle to take home with you. Their merlot blend is available only in a select few NZ restaurants and locations. They were extremely friendly over here at Te Whau and I quite enjoyed their Chardonnay. Their merlot blend was rather lovely too, but I wasn't buying any to take along.

After Te Whau Vineyard, I stopped into Te Whau Garden and Gallery. The art was lovely, the tramp through the woods was okay. I did slip a few times and got a bit muddy since it had been raining. However, it was still lovely and enjoyable and interesting to see. :)

That's it for now ... more later ... but Easter weekend is a huge 4-day weekend (Good Friday & Easter Monday are public holidays) here and so it might be a bit before you hear more.

Te Whau & Sunset