V&T Daily
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grape odyssey
Published in the July-September 2010 issue.
Whether she’s quaffing fine cool-climate wines or following in the trail of that celebrated hobbit, Carol West finds much to celebrate in the land of the Long White Cloud.
Slipping into Forresters Lane, you could easily miss the discreet doorway and motel sign, behind which is a flight of stairs leading to one of Wellington’s first cocktail lounges. Motel Bar is one of the city’s most vibrant wateringholes, a hip little place done up like a ’50s New York jazz bar where visiting international actors can be found sequestered in darkened booths or propped at the bar, sipping sophisticated cocktails. With its innovative dining and café culture; sleek fashion boutiques; cutting-edge stylefests and Zealandia eco-sanctuary, this is a city that has clearly found its mojo. I discover this quite literally on a Zest walking gourmet food tour when we stop at Mojo Coffee Central on in historic Shed 13 on Customhouse Quay, where founder Lambros Gianoutsos and his son Steve roast fair-trade coffee beans for his 14 cafés.
“Wellingtonians are passionate about their coffee,” says Lambros through the popping sounds and smoky blue haze of beans. Greek-born Lambros has been in hospitality here for 50 years: in that time, he has witnessed the emergence of a multicultural cuisine scene.
Trawling along trendy Cuba Street, cafés such as Fidel’s and Ernesto pay homage to old Havana. An early 20th-century department store has been transformed into Floriditas Café & Restaurant, where Spanish-Moorish dishes satisfy a packed house nightly. For food they can bank on, the cognoscenti head for Logan Brown, housed in a former bank: its kitchen, secreted in the vault, creates pricelessly innovative food while diners sit in the opulent banking chamber under a domed ceiling.
Lovingly restored heritage buildings recycled into restaurants, galleries, museums and apartments create a city with a distinct heartbeat. Undulating bike and running tracks take the energetic to ridgelines with panoramic harbour vistas, while a walk along Wellington’s breezy waterfront blows the cobwebs away.
Near the Museum of New Zealand – Te Papa Tongarewa, it’s easy to miss a small, Gollum-like figure crouched on a pylon contemplating his reflection. It was created by Max Patte of WETA Workshop, the Wellington company that created special effects for the Lord of the Rings trilogy and Avatar. Patte has loaned this and a larger figure, Reflection, to the city to complement its growing collection of public art.
Crossing the City to Sea Bridge, constructed from recycled marine timbers, Neil Dawson’s sphere of silver fern floats ethereally above Civic Square. For a more personal out-of-body experience, visitors can head up to the just-opened Carter Observatory, where a multimedia adventure will have you floating like an astronaut through space and time.
Sixty-five kilometres east of Wellington, we reach Martinborough, where slender ribbons of vineyards thread through the Wairarapa wine-growing region. Each November, wine festival Toast Martinborough attracts around 10,000 visitors but today, traffic is quiet. We call in at Tirohana Estate to meet the maker and, as we sip his celebrated Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, Tobias James enthusiastically takes us through the process of producing artisanal handmade wines from the estate’s tiny home block. The boutique winery and its fine-dining restaurant were a big hit recently with AC/DC, who called in for a long lunch during their recent World Tour.
Pinot Noir and Syrah vines were first introduced into the Wairarapa by pastoralist William Beetham in 1883 but the 1908 prohibition movement shut wine production down. One of the first five wineries in the region to re-plant in 1980 was Ata Rangi: its modest cellar door belies the winery’s reputation as a premium Pinot Noir producer. We taste a food-friendly Sauvignon Blanc made from Martinborough fruits, a lightly oaked Chardonnay and a beautifully balanced Pinot Noir that glides down the throat like ruby satin.
More than 30 boutique wineries sprawl along roadsides and country lanes in this area, including Vynfields, where organic and biodynamic wines and gourmet food platters are served to guests in a gracious white homestead at the end of a gravel driveway.
Wine and olives go hand-in-glove, and Olivo is the Wairapa’s oldest commercial olive grove. Here, Lancashire lass Helen Meehan takes visitors on a tour of her ‘United Nations’ grove of around 1,200 olive trees. Olives from Israeli, Greek, Spanish, Italian and French trees are picked and cold-pressed separately to produce Olivo’s medium-intensity oil. It’s grassy-smooth with a pungent hint of pepper. Along with her range of infused oils, Helen’s happy to share cooking tips with visitors. “Fennel-infused olive oil is sensational on chicken and white fish; vanilla works well with crustaceans; and orange-infused oil drizzled over vanilla ice-cream with shaved dark chocolate is sublime,” she confides.
Kent Baddeley, CEO of Parehua Country Estate in West Martinborough, is also excited about the local produce. “Hospitality’s in the blood. My grandmother never cooked anything at her New Zealand pub that she hadn’t caught, grown or skinned herself,” says Baddeley, who set up Parehua’s exclusive accommodation in 2006 to promote the food and wine region. Now wielding the spatula himself, Baddeley produces surprise degustation menus for his guests – once they’ve shoehorned themselves out of the airy villas furnished in gingham and leather or marinated long enough in the outdoor Jacuzzi.
On a good day, a voyage on one of the InterIslander ferries between New Zealand’s North and South Islands is one of the most spectacular three-hour journeys in the world. Even on an average day, it’s a stunning voyage. Each of the three vessels is so well equipped that one child was heard to exclaim, “Mum, this is just like a shopping centre!” Stroll around the decks, take in a meal and a drink or catch a new-release movie.
Disembarking at picturesque Picton, you can take the drive around Queen Charlotte Sound, a 40-kilometre route of breathtaking beauty. Three ancient drowned river valleys have left an extensive area of hidden coves and crescents of golden sand accessible only by water. We head for a night of bush luxury at the Bay of Many Coves resort, where 11 up-market baches – New Zealand’s beloved beach-shacks – provide front-row seats for nature’s gloriously unpredictable show. A dawn chorus of bellbirds and swooping kereru accompany me on a tramp along damp earth tracks to the lookout, and a light breeze sends shivers across the bay’s jade water. Back at the resort, a concierge is on hand to organise winery tours, hikes, helicopter and boating trips, but we catch the water-taxi back to Picton to suss out Marlborough’s seafood and Sauvignon Blanc.
It’s a 25-minute drive from Picton to Blenheim. New Zealand’s largest grape-growing region, producing more than 60 per cent of the country’s wines, Malborough is also the southerly entry point for the Classic New Zealand Wine Trail and has become the epicentre of gourmet cuisine and fine boutique accommodation. Rows of vines run arrow-straight across the Wairau Valley’s broad plains to the foothills of the St Arnaud Range. Cruising, stopping and tasting, you could get lost here for days.
Marlborough was sheep and cattle farming land when Montana planted the region’s first commercial grapes in 1973 and opened Brancott Winery in ’76, pioneering modern-day winemaking. Dry-stone walls encircle a French provincial-style visitors’ centre and, in the rustically elegant restaurant, couples share terroir mini-degustation platters of Marlborough produce, matched with Montana wines.
One of the big players in the world of Sauvignon Blanc, Cloudy Bay doesn’t offer wine tours or gourmet cuisine: instead, it has a cellar door staffed by exceptionally knowledgeable people who gently guide visitors through the complimentary wine-tasting menu while discreet press clippings point to it being one of John Cleese’s favourite drops.
A decade ago, Hans Herzog transported ‘old world wine’ techniques from Switzerland to his ‘new world wine’ home in New Zealand. Taking an artisanal approach, his hand-harvested vintages produce an exquisite range of single vineyard wines of great intensity, which are rated by UK Decanter magazine’s World Wine Awards as among the world’s top new-world wines. Tastings cost NZ$10 for a flight of three wines, refundable on purchase, while the café serves soul food in front of a roaring fire overlooking verdant gardens. In the elegant dining restaurant, each dish on the degustation menu is matched with a Herzog wine. In the cellar, a stellar international collection has been amassed: so outstanding that the prestigious American Wine Spectator magazine gave it an Award of Excellence.
Back in Wellington, the museum at Zealandia, New Zealand’s latest eco-tourism attraction, shows how powerful forces unleashed 45 million years ago gradually squeezed New Zealand’s North and South islands out of a sinking Zealandia continent. Thank goodness – as whether you’re golfing in winter or celebrating spring’s garden festivals, there’s much to celebrate on these two slender islands. •
Photography by Robert Muir / imageink.
TRAVEL FACTS
getting there
getting around
- AAT Kings, phone 1300 556 100 or visit www.aatkings.com.au
- Creative Holidays, phone 1300 747 400 or visit www.creativeholidays.com.au
- Driveaway Holidays, phone 1300 723 972 or visit www.driveaway.com.au
- Green Realm, phone +64 9 300 3085 or visit www.greenrealmtravel.com
- Kirra Holidays, phone 1800 007 373 or +64 3 355 0492 or visit www.kirratours.co.nz
- Platinum International Travel, phone 02 9264 4344 or visit www.platinuminternationaltravel.com.au
- Avis, phone 13 63 33 or visit www.avis.com.au
- Australian Pacific Touring, phone 1300 336 932 or visit www.aptouring.com.au
- Evergreen Tours, phone 02 4929 4333 or visit www.evergreentours.com
- Qantas Holidays, phone 1300 HOLIDAY or visit www.qantas.com.au
- Scenic Tours, phone 02 8274 1300 or visit www.scenictours.com
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