Fresh Tracks: Wine Tasting, Marlborough Style

We headed out this morning to taste some of the world's best Sauvignon Blanc and Pinot Noir in the Marlborough Region of New Zealand.

Instead of booking a traditional wine tasting tour where they drive you around in a van, we elected to go wine tasting by bike! We hired (NZ term for rented) two mountain bikes from our hostel, packed a picnic lunch, and headed off. Our first stop was at Villa Maria, where their friendly staff was the highlight and the wine was good, but not the best we tasted. Our second stop was up the road at Highfield Estate, where the Pinot Noir was outstanding (as were their Sauvignon Blancs) and the top floor had a tower that overlooked not only their vineyard, but the whole valley. The third stop was to a small, boutique winery called Fromm, which was 100% organic and the wine was quite tasty. Our fourth and final stop was to the Brancott Estate, one of the sponsors of the Rugby World Cup and a rather large winery in comparison to the rest we visited today. They had an excellent Sauvignon Gris, which we couldn't pass up buying a bottle. Their tasting room sat atop a big hill, which was rough to bike up, but proved worth it for the view of the entire valley.

So after four tastings and three bottles of wine in our backpack, we rode our bikes the 10km home ... and collapsed!