Sauvignon Blanc in Marborough NZ

Marlborough New Zealand

November 2018 — As an avid wine lover, I really enjoy visiting wine regions around the world. Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand is one of my favorites so I always had in my mind when I visited New Zealand, I had to check out the Marlborough region.

Marlborough is located at the northern part of the South Island in New Zealand. Despite doing research, I didn’t really know that much about the area. We based ourselves in Blenheim for 2 nights to explore the wineries. What I didn’t know was that Blenheim is a pretty sleepy town. Actually EXTREMELY SLEEPY. We were there on Sunday-Monday, so not sure if that had something to do with it. But there was NOTHING OPEN. Luckily enough the hotel had a restaurant for Sunday night so we were able to have dinner there. We used it as our home base and thought we could enjoy dinner in in the city, but if I was going to do it again, I would stay out at a B&B at one of the wineries.

We flew in and arrived mid-AM in Blenheim. We went straight to “Wine by Bike”. https://www.winetoursbybike.co.nz/ We decided why not bike around to the wineries. The company got great reviews and we gave it a try. We had a blast! We were lucky that the weather was great so biking was not a problem. The second day we were there it was cold and rainy so definitely lucky when we rented bikes. The couple who owns “Wine by Bike” gave us a map and tips on which wineries to go to and made us lunch reservations. They were incredibly knowledgeable and accommodating.

We took off and checked out several cellar doors. We went to the following:

Forrest Cellars – we sat and had a nice pairing with cheese https://www.forrest.co.nz/

Giesen – larger production – we shared a tasting here https://giesen.co.nz/

Lunch – https://www.thevinesvillage.co.nz/ - We ate at the restaurant right in the vines village and then went to Whitehaven next door for tastings after

Bladen – this was our FAVORITE. We had wine poured by the owner who told us his story and the wine was fantastic https://www.bladen.co.nz/cellar-door?

TWR– wine was also great https://www.twrwines.co.nz/

Day 2 – grabbed breakfast at a cute café a block from the hotel. The Watery Mouth Café. On Day 2, we went out on a wine tour (smaller tour – we chose Bubbly Grape after doing lots of research for which tour company to use. There were 8 of us on the tour so very personalized. https://www.bubblygrape.co.nz/

They took us to:

Villa Maria https://www.villamariawines.com/

Brancott – very commercialized https://www.brancottestate.com/en

Fromm Winery https://frommwinery.co.nz/

Rock Ferry – we ate lunch here. I had a fantastic salmon/couscous salad - wines were okay, but the food was fantastic https://www.rockferry.co.nz/

No 1 – only sparkling wines – really great https://www.no1familyestate.co.nz/

Hunter’s Wines https://hunters.co.nz/

We found a restaurant that was open on Monday night, and they also had the famous “green lipped mussels” which we heard so much about so we went for it! They were delicious. The restaurant was called “Saveur”. http://www.saveur.co.nz/