New Zealand 3.0 Marlborough

Our two days in the Marlborough region began with a 3 hour ferry ride from the North to the South Island.






We stayed in Bleinheim, the biggest city in the area (population 30K). Our hotel was a real cool place within walking distance of downtown.

These were two amazing days of wine tasting. We started with lunch at Wither Hill




The cheese board as you can see was amazing. The little curry dumplings hidden in the back of the photo, not so much. But it was a gorgeous place to have lunch. Not bad for our first stop.

Highfield

Not our favorite New Zealand red, but a decent Pinot...




Spy Valley

I really liked Spy Valley's Sauvignon Blanc. We were determined not to buy a bunch of them, we wanted to see what else the region had to offer. This was the one we bought. To our surprise, we actually found one store in Lexington that sells it.

Herzog





Georges Michel



Wairau River






Nautilus




Framingham




Blanden








We had two memorable dinners in Bleinheim.

Scotch Wine bar was as hipster as Blenheim gets.



Fairweathers Bar and Andrea made some kind of special connection. They served up some great fish and chips.



I suspect it had something to do with this:



When was the last time you were at a sports bar that had pate??

And this is the best beer I've had in a long time. I already checked... even though Monteith's does export to select states in the US, they don't export Radler. Boo.



The fish and chips:



Green curry mussels:



Giant grape! And yeah, thats the pate in the background: