I hadn’t been to any New Zealand vineyards and K was quite disappointed suggested a do a tour. Nelson seemed like a perfect place as it was a quiet town and cheaper than in other towns like Abel Tasman. Also, it was a sunny day and a perfect afternoon to consume a bottle of wine.
Before I move onto the wine tour I should share the educational part of the tour.
1) 90% of New Zealand’s plants/trees are not native. There is a lot of trees from North America, including wine and oak
2) 95% of New Zealand’s trees are evergreen and do not turn colour when it gets colder
3) New Zealand mistakenly introduced new animals to the environment which has caused a lot of problem
The biggest problem is oppossum which was introduced for the fur trade which ended up not going so well. The issue is that there is no natural predator and so they eat all the kiwi bird eggs and destroy the forests.
New Zealand citizens decided they couldn’t go on with these animals and declared war 50 years ago. To this day they are still attempting to kill every one of this. I’m not entirely sure this is true as J told me this on the way back from climbing Tongariro.
Now back to the fun part, drinking wine.
Per usual it was mostly couples on the tour but luckily but there were several solo women and one man from Chile. This was so nice because women seem to come together when traveling solo. Women become friends immediately simply because they aren’t in a couple and ask each other out to eat dinner or to events because they know solo women have no one else to do things with.
In fact, in some ways I think it’s better than travelling with someone because you meet so many people. Whereas if you see a couple you just assume they want to do things on their own. No one ever invites a couple out to dinner, we just assume they want to spend the time alone. I think that’s true if it’s a vacation but if it’s longer they want the company of others.
On this vineyard tour I spent most of the day drinking wine, eating bread and antipasto with a girl from England, another from Scotland and two women from Ontario and Ireland. They were really nice women and I had a great time. They had quite a few wines that I knew I liked. They also had the German ‘box o wine’ that we have at Christmas. It starts with a G and is impossible to spell and even more difficult to pronounce.
Overall I would say New Zealand vineyards produce wine that is pretty good. I liked some better than others but I discovered a new food item called dukkah, when you dip your bread in olive oil you then dip it into this mix which is I think grated nuts and spices. I bought some and plan to figure out how to make it myself.
After a tour to 5 New Zealand vineyards in the summer heat we headed back home. I had a nap and then met the women from the tour for dinner at a local pub. All in all it was a good day.
