New Zealand #11 - We don't find a Favourite Winery - Marlborough, South Island

You won't be surprised that today it's still cloudy and drizzly, about 20 Celsius, as we leave our overnight stop at Kaikoura and head to the Marlborough wine region. If you followed my Australia posts you'll remember in The Barossa I remarked that I hadn't actually told brightonbonnie that we were really visiting wine areas under the guise of a 90 day roadtrip. So here we are heading to the second wine region, Marlborough.

We start with a nice drive on Highway 1 along the coast, and in one stretch see some seals on the rocks, though nowhere as many as at Cape Foulwind. You won't be surprised either that it starts to rain heavily again just as we need to fill our tank, and find likely the only station in New Zealand that, first, doesn’t have rain cover, and, secondly, where you must pay at the pumps - did I mention there was no cover? - so I get very dampish both pumping and paying. Apparently the concept is the station is open round the clock, and you can always pay at the pump, but they seem to have forgotten about the rain, which seems odd in New Zealand, doesn't it?

Kim Crawford is one of brightonbonnie's favourite wines so as a surprise I set up the GPS to take us to their cellar door in Blenheim. We get off the main highway just as we enter the town in a rather bland industrial area and end up in a cul-de-sac looking at these large tanks.

A worker sees the rather confused look on my face and explains, first, that this really is a winery but basically a large industrial producer, and secondly, that Kim Crawford once owned the facility, which explains why it is still listed on my GPS.

Cloudy Bay.

Fortunately Blenheim has a very nice wine Info Center, where we get a map of the region and a wonderful ‘Winery Door’ poster which is now framed and hanging in my bar. They also confirm that Kim Crawford is really a large-scale wine producer and doesn't actually have a cellar door - major disappointment for brightonbonnie, but still on her favourite wine list!

We ask the Info Center to recommend a place where we can taste some wine and have something to eat, and they recommend Cloudy Bay, just a few kilometers outside town.

It's a great choice. It was one of the first Marlborough wineries, dating back to 1985, and one of the first to establish the region's reputation, producing the first New Zealand wine to make Wine Spectator’s Top 100 several years back.

brightonbonnie has a glass of Sauvignon Blanc, I have Pinot Noir, and we share a very nice cheese plate, with 5 New Zealand cheeses, including 2 that are made locally.

Cheeses on display - can you see brightonbonnie?

A fine photo of my back, still in rain jacket, still dampish.

Interestingly, given all the cloud and rain that has followed us throughout South Island, the bay is not named after clouds. In 1770 the ubiquitous Captain Cook named the bay after (guess what?) heavy rains washed sediment into the sea and gave the water a cloudy appearance.

brightonbonnie getting over her Kim Crawford disappointment!

PS - if you've enjoyed this post please check out my first 10 New Zealand posts, the previous 19 posts in my Australia series, and the 3 before that as we started our 90 day roadtrip in Tahiti!

And please join us in my next post as we continue to Picton, where we spend our last few days on South Island.

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!steemitworldmap -41.507356 lat 173.930142 long Marlborough South Island New Zealand d3scr