Oh my goodness you guys, if I had to pick one place to just sit and drink wine for the rest of my life it would definitely be in Blenheim, New Zealand. Blenheim is known for its amazingly gorgeous days (it averages the most sunny days out of any New Zealand city! WHAT?!) and the wineries there specialize in sauvignon blanc wine. Need I say more? I’m sold!
Vince and I wanted to experience as much as we could on the one day we were in Blenheim (aka Marlborough County), so we decided to book a wine tour with Hop N’ Grape Tours. Cam, the owner and tour guide, was absolutely amazing and SO knowledgeable. His dad owns a winery and he has worked at wineries for many years, so he knew everything from when to pick the grapes to how it’s made. Cam taught me how to pick out which vineyard rows were sauvignon blanc vs chardonnay vs pinot noir, too! I felt pretty dang smart by the end of the trip 😉 But I’ll admit, I only remember what the sauvignon blanc ones look like, because that’s all I was really interested in. HA! We were able to visit 4 different wineries, 1 chocolate shop, and 1 brewery!
Because Cam used to work at Mount Riley Vineyard, he was able to give us an exclusive tour of the grounds as well as take us up on this cool walkup to let us try the wine that had never touched air before that very moment. Kinda cool, right? Unfortunately, they do not export Mount Riley wines to the states, so if you want to try their wines, you’re going to have to make a trip to New Zealand!
The next winery we visited was Villa Maria. This was probably the most gorgeous of the ones we saw. You can buy Villa Maria in the states too, which is very exciting!
The third winery was also where we decided to eat lunch and oh my goodness was it divine! It was so gorgeous, I had to take a photo of it. Just stunning! Thanks Rock Ferry for an amazing experience!
The last winery we visited was probably my favorite of the four. I believe you can buy Saint Clair in the states (yay!) and they made a point to only give me white wine tastings and not red wine. I get a headache with red wine! SO sweet of them (and thank you Cam for mentioning it!) to cater to me in that way- it made a lasting impression. Plus, all of the wines I tasted were SO good. Didn’t taste a bad one!
This was the view from the chocolate shop. Holy moly.
I didn’t take any photos of the brewery, but we did try 4 kinds of beer! It was not my favorite beer in the world, but it was still fun to try local beer. However, these were the pretty vineyards next to the brewery, haha!
