Greetings from New Zealand! The guy who picked us up from the airport in Auckland has become like a God to me. First he recommends we have dinner at the
O'Connell Street Bistro in downtown Auckland, which was charming, cozy, and delicious; a restaurant staffed by a friendly and quietly brilliant lot who steered me towards excellent wines from Hawkes Bay. (More on that meal and those wines to come.) Second he tells us to check out the wines on Waiheke Island. Huh? Sure I've heard of Marlborough and the Otago, but drawing a blank here. Since it involved a ferry ride to an island, how bad could it be? Turns out it was aces.
The first two wineries we visited had some wines that ranged from ho-hum to adequate. Fortunately, the best was saved for last:
Te Whau Vineyard. Can you believe how gorgeous this place is?!? The top photo is a shot of the steep vineyards planted to Bordeaux varietals. The slope is so perilous that the grapes must be hand-harvested as, even in 2011, there is no machine that could do such a job. (Though if I had to turn my back on that view to pick grapes, I'm not sure how much progress I'd make.) And if you're wondering about the netting, it keeps grape-decimating birds away from the fruit. Anyway, let's go inside and check out the restaurant and tasting bar, shall we?
Always nice to pull up a stool and gaze out at this:
Or maybe you'd rather sit down at a table with someone special. Hell, with this view, even someone not-so-special:
Get to the wines already! Sorry, distracted.
We tasted two vintages (06, 07) of Te Whau's signature Bordeaux blend,
The Point. It's a Cab-heavy mix of Merlot, Cab Franc, and Malbec. Both were very, very good. The 2006 was a little riper and richer than the more finessed 2007. If I was served these wines blind I would have said Bordeaux. Though I would have been wrong (
nooooooo!), I took solace in noting the surrounding evidence suggested that I was at least philosophically on the right track:
And big cheers to proprietor Tony Forsyth. He gave the most informative, educational, humorous, down-to-earth, and passionate talk about wine and Te Whau, specifically.
From now on when someone mentions how so-and-so is "Living the Dream", I am going to think of Tony. He's probably sitting out on the patio, enjoying some food, some wine, and life right about now.
