Waiheke Wine Country
Trip Start
Jun 24, 2008
1
21
22
Trip End
Aug 10, 2008
Waiheke Island,
North Island,
New Zealand
Sunday, August 10, 2008
For you wine connoisseurs out there, New Zealand is a great place to try wine
Mudbrick
. Wineries can be found throughout the country. We decided to check out the vineyards located on Waiheke Island, which is a small island off of the coast of Auckland. Unfortunately, we waited to Saturday morning to book the wine tour, and it turned out to be booked. Luckily, we managed to track down another one at the last minute. It all worked out well, because we ended up on a private tour with just the four of us, instead of being on the large tour we had originally planned on going on. Our tour guide was April, who was in her 70s and ran the company with her husband. They decided to retire to the island about 25 years ago. She was very sweet, and set up a great tour for us.The first stop on our tour was the Mudbrick Vineyard, which was a spectacularly beautiful vineyard in the hills of the island overlooking Auckland and the water. It was not surprising to learn that there are many weddings on the grounds--as well as a two-year waiting list for a wedding (not to mention the $15,000-30,000 cost of renting the place out). Our wine guide was Bob, an extremely knowledgeable and well-traveled Englishman, who was great. Not only did he explain the difference between a syrah and a shiraz (the spelling), he also explained which driver has the right-of-way on a round-about. Even more surprisingly, he: (1) got Paul to confess the real reason he does not like red wine (a fraternity hazing incident involving Mad Dog 20/20); and (2) got Paul to drink red wine and even admit that it wasn't bad
Mudbrick 2
. Despite knowing Paul for 5 years (not to mention marrying him), I had never heard the Mad Dog story, nor had I ever been successful in my attempts to get him to drink red wine. It was very enlightening. Not to mention intoxicating, since we left having sampled 8 eight wines.The second stop on our tour was the Kennedy Point Vineyard which was a great boutique organic vineyard. It was also a bit of a throwback vineyard--not only do they pick and prune the grapes by hand, they actually still stomp on the grapes, like in that episode of I Love Lucy. Our wine guide was an Irish woman named Maire ("Maura"), who was very sweet and knowledgeable. She entertained us with stories about the after-picking party and the drunk cows (they feed the cows the parts of the grapes they do not use--apparently the cows start to sing when they are tipsy). The vineyard also made olive oil and avocado oil, which were really good. We were particularly fond of the avocado oil, which we had never seen before.
We finished up he tasting at Cable Bay Vineyard, which was beautiful, but not as friendly as the other two vineyards. We then hopped on the ferry back to Auckland, where Jeremy and Connie immediately passed out after the day of drinking wine. Connie was so soundly asleep that she even slept through the side of the ferry ramming into the side of the wharf as it was pulling into the Devonport wharf, which we all thought was hysterical.
After arriving back in Auckland, we set out for the All Blacks store so that Paul could collect the other sock to complete the pair started in Taupo. Unfortunately, they were out of the black and white striped New Zealand socks, but they gave us a pair of navy blue and white rugby socks instead. Oh, well. C'est la vie, as they say. We finished the evening--our last night in New Zealand--with a pleasant dinner with Jeremy and Connie. It's so hard to believe our journey has come to an end!
Comments
Whoa...
I was worried if Paul would get that other sock. HEY YA is one of me and my sons favorites! We are glad you guys had a great trip, see ya further on up the road!
Vince