After Picton, we headed about a half hour south to Blenheim, the main wine region on the South Island. Our first stop was the Omaka Aviation Heritage Centre, to look at old World War I planes. This museum had many original and replica airplanes, some owned by Sir Peter Jackson, of LOTR fame. He helped by not only displaying his planes, but also enlisting people to help develop how they were displayed. It was a very interesting museum and we were both shocked to read that during WW I, the English decided not to give parachutes to its flyers, for fear that they would abandon the planes too quickly. So no parachutes “encouraged” them to get the plane down safely! There were some displays of some amazing derring-do by some of the pilots and a large area with Red Baron possessions.
I only took one picture in the museum. I thought this was just an amazing plane. It really looks like a bird.
The next day we went to the Huia winery. The Marlborough region is a flat, dry, brown valley surrounded by hills with one end butting against the sea. It reminded me of the Napa region, with row upon row of grape vines, growing on dry, brown ground. The region was in the midst of a drought, like the rest of the country, which exacerbated the dryness. We were lucky enough to have arranged a tour of the vineyard by the owner/winemaker, and I was surprised to find that it was a private tour. Spencer and I had taken our daughters to a Huia wine dinner at Carelli’s in Boulder about a year ago and met the wife/owner of the vineyard. So when we arrived, we found that husband Mike was going to spend an hour with us, walking us through the vineyard for Sauvignon Blanc and Pinot Noir grapes tasting, straight from the vines, and through the wine making facility. He was an extremely nice guy and it was a really interesting tour. We found out that Gary, our friendly wine salesman at Superior Liquor, had won the annual Huia sales contest and had been at the vineyard the week before. After a tasting of a variety of the Huia wines, we went off to the Brancott winery for lunch. Unlike Huia, which is a small, organic winery, Brancott is very, very large and has a large restaurant on a ridge overlooking one of their vineyards. We had a lovely lunch of cheese and charcuterie, with a tasting of their pinot noirs. We sat outside, eating bread and cheese and sipping wine – a very tough life indeed. All of this hard work then necessitated a nap, to counteract all of the hard work we had done.
Huia Winery vineyard. This was a very fun tour.
Our tour is over and now we get to sample the wines.
Lunch at Brancott winery. Great lunch, great wine, great view, and great company.