Sand in my Shoes: Wine Tasting in Otago

Having arrived safely in Queenstown on Sunday evening, we ventured into town for a delicious dinner at the Fishbone and a quick walk around. Our hotel is about a 25 minute walk outside of the main downtown area, although I confess we cheated and took cabs for our first evening there. We didn't give a lot of thought to the fact that it was Easter weekend, as the US doesn't observe Easter public holidays. However, they take Easter very seriously in New Zealand and all the pubs and bars etc. were closed, so you could only buy drinks if you were also eating. Needless to say, this made sure the restaurants were very busy! Also, as Monday was observed as Easter Monday, most of the businesses in town were going to be closed. Luckily, we realized this on Monday morning, so we quickly called up a wine tour company and were able to get the last two spots on an afternoon tour.

Our tour was with a company called Appellation Central Wine Tours, who picked us up at the hotel at 12pm and dropped us back just before 6pm. All in all, a day well spent, as we visited four wineries and had a lovely lunch at the second one. This is the first wine tour I have been on where I have actually tried to taste the different wines, although after the first stop, I made good use of the little buckets where you throw the wine away. Billy tells me these are called spitoons - I think they need some re-branding here!!

Our tour guide was actually from Lake City, Florida, although his parents were from New Zealand and he has been living here for the last 13 years. Still, it is funny how few actual Kiwi's we seem to meet, particularly in Queenstown itself. As Tor's father told us, Queenstown is where New Zealanders go to feel like a tourist in their own country.

Our first stop was at a winery called Peregrine Wines. We were able to tour the storage area, and see all the barrels, but unfortunately, they were all empty, as the harvest season is just starting here. The barrels cost around NZ$2,000 each, from France, and are only used about 4 or 5 times before they are sold on for about $100 each, to be used in furniture, cut in half for garden planters and sometimes to be used by beer makers to give their brew that extra finish!

The second winery was called Carrick Wines, and we had lunch here on a patio overlooking the vineyards. The weather was just perfect - in the low 60's, with a nice breeze, but a warm sun and bright blue skies. See photos for proof! :)

After a leisurely picnic-style lunch, we headed back in the van to a winery called Mt. Difficulty. Our tour guide gave us interesting information about the history of the area as we drove through it, and why Mt. Difficulty was named etc. The winery itself was on top of a hill, overlooking the property. There was a really cool old 1951 Bedford truck in the parking lot as well as a gorgeous v12 Jaguar. Quite the contrasting pair! We bought a bottle of wine here, as we had done at Peregrine (no idea how we are getting these home!!) but our favourite winery was the last one of all...

We ended up at Waitiri Creek wines, which is a beautiful old church that has been deconsecrated and turned into a winery. The building itself was lovely and as we were the last scheduled tour of the day, we had the winery to ourselves. Billy finally found a pinot noir he really liked, which was a relief as well. the Central Otago region is known as the pinot noir region of New Zealand, but we had actually been enjoying the pinot gris a lot more - maybe because each tasting started with that and by the fifth or sixth wine our tastebuds were shot? And yes, I say we, because I even enjoyed the Peregrine Wines pinot gris, and so Billy had bought me a bottle. They are made from a variation of the same grape, but the pinot gris was lighter and sweeter and apparently, I didn't make such a funny face when I would drink it. :)

All in all it was a great day and I highly recommend the Appellation Central tours, as they are meant to be smaller than the other companies in the area. As usual, we lucked out. After getting dropped off at the hotel, we lucked out again as we stopped at the concierge desk who made dinner reservations for us at a fantastic restaurant, the Jervois Steakhouse. But more on that later. I'll try and upload some photos later, but for now, we have to get on with our day! :)