Queens Birthday in the wineries.

Well I guess the fact of the matter is that we have been drinking more wine than we have been buying so off we set on a buying trip in the Hawkes Bay. Just a slight panic as we approached Havelock North as we had booked our accomodation on line and then taken no printout with us. Luckily we fronted up to the correct motel! Nice meal and wine on the first night and we awoke to a brilliantly fine day. Duncan went for a run while I enjoyed the Dominion in bed. Then we went clothes shopping for Duncan as the only decent men's wear shop in Gisborne has closed. I was pleasantly suprised that we came out with 2 pair trou, a black jacket and 3 shirts. Very smart!! After loosing weight with his marathon training he needed to update his clothes. A visit to the information centre for Wine Trail Maps which we studied over tea and a muffin. Then we set off to Brookfields, Unison, Trinity Hill, Crossroads, Abbey and Alpha Domus. What struck us was how welcoming and knowledgable the people were, and we seemed to come away with quite a few free gifts if we bought half a dozen.


What a contrast the next day was. Very cold and miserable, but we started off at the driving range as I have had a golf lesson and hope to get back to golf again after quite a break away. Our first stop was Askerne where we met the winemaker who was a very jovial host.

He had there a sweet red grape "sticky" which he insisted we try with dark chocolate buttons. Yum. so I've got some for next time I have the girls around for afternoon tea. Here are the botrytised grapes still on the vine in June! We then headed out for the coast and went to Te Awanga after having lunch at a cafe watching the waves crash on the beach. We had hope to have lunch at Clearview but there were a large crowd of Her Royal Highness lookalikes there obviously celebrating the birthday. We finished on a posh note with Te Mata, Black Barn, and Craggy Range who were tasting their flagship wines, so it was nice to taste the $120 bottle even though we didn't buy it.

By now the back seat of the car was full to the brim with wines and when we got home Duncan meticulously wrote them all up in the wine book. We are now on wine book 14, having started our cellar, and book 1 on 6th April 1974!