August 13, 2005

Napier is an interesting town. It has a sleepy coastal vibe to it, and it seems like it's a pretty good place to be if you're either young or young at heart, a skater/bmx biker or a post-hippie counterculture intellectual, or if you just like being close to a coast that has no sandy beach and therefore avoids most of the annoying tourist crowd. Our gracious YHA host Susan -- formerly of Monterey, California, but now a dedicated resident of New Zealand -- spent some time trying to convince us to get work permits and live in New Zealand for a few years. It doesn't seem like a bad idea at all!

We started off the day with breakfast at the Starving Artist cafe, where we were able to catch up with the news through the local paper. I wasn't sure why, but the newspaper seemed sort of different... then it hit me! There weren't really any negative stories in it! Oh sure, a random article here and there about international struggles, but the other stories were either local interest pieces or involved local politics. There's an election going on right now -- New Zealand is multi-party, but it looks like to two main parties are the National Party (boo!!) and the Labour Party (go Socialists!), and they're currently dead even. At any rate, it doesn't look like too many terrible things happen in New Zealand. Sweet.

I read a sign on the street in Napier that said "I lost some weight, but it found me." That's exactly how I feel right now. We're going to have to hit the gym hard when we get back to the States.

This is the part of the trip that's dedicated to wine tasting. We did a bit of Hawke's Bay yesterday (although nothing that memorable), so today we were aiming to finish up Hawke's Bay and hit the Martinborough region (for the Pinot Noir). The tasting notes that follow are for my own benefit, to help me practice articulating what I think I'm tasting in different wines. If this sort of thing bores you to death (and I don't blame you if it does), or if you find such things to be annoyingly snooty (again, I wouldn't blame you) you might want to skip ahead a day or two in this journal.

Our first stop of the morning was at the Craggy Range Winery, an impressive NZ $68 million estate to the southeast of Hastings. Part of the "New Zealand Twelve," the fairly young estate that focuses on single vineyard wines -- a common practice in the U.S., but somewhat less widespread here. The winery is owned by a family originally from the U.S. (but more recently living in Australia) and the winemaker is a New Zealand veteran with over 25 years of experience in the local wine industry. Our hosts, Brandon and Jeff, were very cool, and I learned some stuff I didn't know, like how to keep or eliminate residual sugar in a wine, "sur lie" fermentation, and how to prune grape leaves from the vine to leave the clusters "naked" and trick them into ripening in cooler weather. We tasted the following wines:

2004 Avery Vineyard Sauvignon Blanc: A "classic" New Zealand, Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc -- very fruit forward, with pervasive tropical fruit aromas. Good acidity on the palate, with equal parts of lime and citrus to accompany the passionfruit flavor.

2004 Te Muna Road Vineyard Sauvignon Blanc: My first chance to compare Sauvignon Blanc from Marlborough and Martinborough side by side; there really is a pretty noticeable difference, with the Martinborough-grown grapes exhibiting more of an herbaceous, grassy quality. Good stuff.

2004 Rapaura Road Vineyard Riesling: This is a killer dry riesling that showcases the potential for complexity of Riesling when fermentation is allowed to proceed, resulting in very little residual sugar. Awesome nose of peaches and apricot, accompanied by tropical fruit flavors and some minerality upon tasting. Wow.

2004 Seven Poplars Vineyard Chardonnay: The Kiwis are not afraid of malo one bit! Ultra round and buttery, I had a hard time getting to the fruit component of the wine.

2004 Reserve Chardonnay: Really a LOT of oak in this one... weighs down your palate like lead even minutes afterward. Not my kind of thing.

2002 Gimblett Gravels Vineyard Merlot: This was a real winner! The Gimblett Gravels Merlot benefits from being planted in an old riverbed, so the top few feet of soil is pure gravel (excellent drainage, radiant heat from the sun-drenched gravel). The bottling is 90% Merlot and 10% Malbec... the Malbec lends a lot of texture and complexity to the ripe fruit of the Merlot, resulting in a soft but substantial Pomerol-like wine. Really good stuff -- I wish Merlot tasted like this all the time!

2004 Sophia Gimblett Gravels: This is the winery's reserve proprietary Merlot-based blend. An interesting wine -- definitely structured for ageing. Might soften up and exhibit more character as it ages (heck, I don't know), but it made 2004 seem like an off year compared with the similar blend for the 2003 Merlot.

Since we had so many wines at one location, we decided to head off to Martinborough, which was at least 3 hours away. We've been blessed with some pretty amazing weather so far, considering that this is the middle of their winter -- today we had very spring-like conditions -- although with the amount of sunshine we're getting, I really need to start wearing sunscreen since New Zealand is directly under a hole in the ozone layer and there's no air pollution to block the UV. I guess even paradise has its downside.

As we were driving through the scenic passage to Martinborough, there were some pretty enormous winds, and a giant storm loomed to the west of our route... decently removed from our path, but close enough to create some cool rainbows. In fact, it seemed like most of the day, we were either being followed by or chasing rainbows... the last rainbow of the day was the most complete rainbow I've ever seen, visible from end to end. No pot of gold though.

We started getting the munchies about an hour after the Craggy Range tasting, but we had no time to stop for food, so as much as I hate to admit it, we feasted on some delectable treats from good 'ol KFC. And you know what? It was pretty darn tasty.

We finally arrived in Martinborough at 3 p.m., and I was excited! La Verne and I tasted our first New Zealand Pinot Noir last year on a trip to Napa during the Memorial Day weekend... We were at the Martini House, and we asked our server for an interesting Pinot Noir. He suggested the 2002 Ata Rangi, from the Martinborough region. It was amazing stuff -- so much so that the first place I knew I wanted to visit in New Zealand was Ata Rangi! Here are a couple of photos we took of their property:

Bummer for us, Ata Rangi doesn't open in the winter!!! Grr... Not to be thwarted, we pressed onward and stopped instead at Alana Estate, a respected winery in the region that has a more limited production scale. The winery itself was in the last stages of a total renovation, so we actually did our tasting in a little portable office right next to the new winery. Here's what we tried:

2004 Sauvignon Blanc, Marlborough: Another zesty, easy-to-drink sauvignon blanc, with abundant tropical fruit and a light citric acidity.

2004 Riesling: Off-dry, more sweet than distinguishable.

2003 Pinoit Noir, Tuapapa: The "younger" and more ready-to-drink of the two Pinot Noirs, this wine came from 3-4 year-old vines. Medium-light color and medium body; pronounced oak in the nose. Some bitterness in the oak as well, masking the fruit and violet nuances.

2003 Pinot Noir: Pronounced cherry and strawberry flavors; oak accent is still heavy-handed, but more well-integrated. A touch of mint.

Our next stop was Palliser Estate Wines, the largest producer in Martinborough (40,000 cases/year). Since it's the low season here, there aren't too many visitors at the wineries, making it a great chance to interact with the winery hosts. Everyone we met in Martinborough was really warm and friendly, and took and avid interest in educating us about their wines. We tasted:

2004 Pencarrow Sauvignon Blanc: More heavily citric and acidic than others we've tried so far... more lime and some grapefruit -- more zesty than crisp.

2004 Pencarrow Chardonnay: Aged in American oak; bitter, overwhelming oakiness. Tastes like a mass produced Chardonnay.

2004 Palliser Chardonnay: Lots of malo effect again, resulting in a significantly softer, rounded wine. Here, it tastes more balanced, with the creaminess not being so strong that it masks the fruit; it actually tastes like the butteriness brings the fruit components out through contrast.

2003 Pencarrow Pinot Noir: Ripe, accessible fruit, but lacking in complexity and structure. Quaffable, but a little flat.

2003 Palliser Pinot Noir: Cherry and strawberry on the nose, with hints of an even deeper plum/Cabernet accent. On tasting, the flavors were somewhat overwhelmed by the oak.

Our final winery in Martinborough was Te Kairanga, the oldest vineyard in Martinborough. That just means that it was planted back in 1978, which was pretty ground-breaking for the region. Basically, most of the local farmers didn't really get why all these folks were coming in to plant grapes in their perfectly good pastures, so they put up some resistance. Now, with the acclaim that the wines are getting, most folks are pretty agreeable to the concept. La Verne's looking a little tipsy in this picture...

We just tried 3 wines here -- all Pinot Noir. I really liked the second Pinot Noir we tried, the 2004 Runholder Vineyard. Something about it completely lured me in. It had an incredibly floral and perfumed nose... something that I've smelled before but just can't put my finger on. Anyways, I can't wait to take it home and open it up back in the U.S. So after tasting 20 wines, we thought we should call it a day. My taste buds were completely wiped out. Time to head off to our next stop.

We finally ended up in Wellington, the capital of New Zealand. We were told that Wellington is a lot like San Francisco -- laid back, cosmopolitan and fairly liberal -- and by the looks of things it is. Unfortunately, we won't get to explore the city much, since we got in pretty close to dinner time and our ferry leaves for the South Island early tomorrow morning. It's a beautiful coastal town with a pretty active-looking night scene. We haven't been in a big city since landing in Auckland, so it actually felt a little strange to see so many folks out and about.

La Verne was craving some Indian food, so we headed off to Tulsi, a BYO restaurant. The food was really good, well-priced, and the corkage was the equivalent of US $2. The only negative was that we ate WAY more than we should have, leading to expanded bellies and my facial expression of defeat in this picture. Wow, that's pretty much it for the North Island. It was AWESOME. Can't wait to see what's in store for us in the South Island!

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