For our New Zealand planning, Toby knew we needed to have some time to explore and taste the vineyards of the Marlborough wine region.

I’ve been drinking New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc for many years with many of my friends (you know who you are). 

It turns out that Sauvignon Blanc was first planted in NZ by Ross Spence in 1969 in the Matua Valley and in 1975 Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc, now Brancott Estate, was planted in the South Island.

Arrival in Marlborough Wine Region – Blenheim and Renwick

As we left Motueka we drove east through more insane gorges and valleys, arriving too early to book into our campsite. Eager to explore, we headed to some of the wine names I knew. The first one was Cloudy Bay and to be honest it shocked us. It was glorious and the winery opened their arms and offered us a wine tasting without any prebooking. It was luxurious looking – obviously helped by the sunshine and the amazing outdoor hanging seats. I had always thought of Cloudy Bay as one of the cheaper NZ Sauvignons this was definitely not the case!

We then drove to Villa Maria, a fave of mine, and it was weird as although I had it pegged as a luxury brand the winery seemed less luxurious than the Cloudy Bay one. 

In general though the wineries in NZ had a different feel to those we’ve been to in France and Germany. They welcomed everyone whether on a tour or not. We had booked our tour for the following day so didn’t taste the wines on arrival day, instead we took a few photos. 

For the first time ever I had done some research on what wine tour you should do in this region. I read a great blog from EarthTrekkers which gave the options and some recommendations.

Some of our readers will know that my balance on a push bike isn’t brilliant, even without wine, so we decided on a driven tour to limit the likelihood of falling off a bike and so we could hear from the locals about the stories of the wines and try out some new ones. 

There are 80 wineries in Renwick and Blenheim and 169 registered wine companies in the Marlborough region so there’s a lot to go visit – we only had one day!

Our tour Wine Tour

It was originally booked as half day and changed mid way through to the full day started at 10am. With wine tasting starting that early what could possibly go wrong. We were on a tour with two other couples and had Phil as our driver. 

Phil picked everyone up and promised us our first glass of wine by 10:15.

We started our tour at Forrest Wines. Our Cellar Door host was from the UK and told us about the founders, two Dr’s who turned their hand to wine science after using their science for medicine. Our first wine here was one of Dr Forrest’s low alcohol experiments which is sold in some high end UK supermarkets. The Dr’s Experimentation overall gave some great tasting wines in a beautiful location. So good that apparently Gary Barlow had been there the day before for his ITV wine series.

Nautilus Estate was our next stop. The wine was great – particularly loved the logo and sign outside and as the company says “The striking Nautilus shell – its shape expressing natural beauty and mathematical perfection – is our inspiration to create a collection of expressive, textural, precisely crafted wines.”

One of our tour group, the Tasmanian lady, loved “bubbles” and asked if she could swap one of her 4 taster wines to try some bubbles instead. The Cellar host agreed and we were all then invited to try it. It was excellent and this day indeed reminded me of the saying if you don’t ask you don’t get! 

Two wineries in and it was still just before noon. Our next stop was my all time fave winery and Sauvignon Blanc Saint Clair. We enjoyed five wines starting with bubbles. I got totally carried away with the amazing environment, great wine and fantastic lunch that we ordered that the only pictures we got were of the food platter and us drinking the wine! 

The Cellar Door host was fantastic with her explanation of the wine making process. I really enjoyed all of the wines from Saint Clair and these were my favourite wines of the days tour!

Whitehaven had a great start up story and here we learnt that market forces in the US are changing what they call their wine. In NZ it’s Pinot Gris and in the US it will be called Pinot Grigio. I thought they were two very different wines however that is what the market in the US wants and that is what it will get.

Hunters was our last cellar door and Phil our tour driver had known the founders from years ago. Ernie and Jane Hunter had the perfect start up and success story. He was the entrepreneur that won the initial wine awards in Europe with his New Zealand wine and Jane has brought her fantastic leadership and commitment to sustainability and and has just kept winning awards. The winery has some great photos of their successes and the vibe was fun and professional.

Our tour driver didn’t stop there. We had one final stop which was chocolate tasting at Makana Confectionaries which really finished off a perfect day! The chocolate was pretty good, however it would never have made it home so we didn’t buy any!

After a wonderful day tasting wines and knowing we had an early start the next morning we had an early night!

Our second New Zealand park run

At ridiculous o clock we woke grabbed a quick cup of tea and walked into Blenheim to do our second park run in New Zealand. It was joyously flat and not too hot and I managed to get my personal best time. We headed back for showers and brekkie and then it was time to get the inter island ferry and leave the South Island part of our New Zealand trip.

Goodbye South Island.

That’s all for now

Sally and Toby