Spending the OAP

Duncan's birthday dawned a clear crisp day in Queenstown and after breakfast, presents and texts we left with Pinotthyme Wine Tours. Jim has worked in the wine industry, here and in Oz, had his own vineyard and made his own wine. He had just sold his vineyard and gone into the wine tours business. Joining us on the tour were Tom and Jenna, a young couple from Queensland. I did wonder about Tom's occupation when we suggested that they should try a bungy and he retorted - "I'm not going to risk a detached retina" It turned out that the young Tom Cruise look-a-like was a doctor and his tall, willowy partner was a nurse.
The first winery of the day was Peregrine, where the riesling was a stunner, but the servings were miserly (which, of course may have been a good thing at 11 in the morning!)
Aurum was next - a Kiwi grapegrowing family whose son married a french wine maker, Lucy. We arrived just as a group of voluble  french wine buyers were leaving. Fortunately Lucy switched back to English when they left. She is from Burgundy so we are expecting great things from her Pinot Noir.
We had been to Wooing Tree before, and here we found the first - and only - decent Chardonnay of the day.

I think I'll go home in the red ferrari.

We had lunch at Cromwell in an Italian restaurant. I had an apricot smoothie, Duncan had a beer, but Tom and Jenna had another glass of wine! - we were impressed by their staying power and love of the drier wines. After wandering through the artist's quarter we set off to Quartz Reef - a favourite sparkling wine of ours - and were impressed with the sparkling rose which had a bit of extra oomph to it.

A calm Lake Dunstan

At the historic village of Cromwell

Tom, Jenna and I enjoy the terrace at Mt Difficulty

It is a spectacular drive up to Mount Difficulty wines, with intense blue skies behind the rugged bronze peaks. Mount Difficulty is now the biggest wine company in the region, and their wines are more readily available in Gisborne. The Chenin Blanc was very interesting.

Duncan checks out the Brennan Vines

"Save the best till last" applied to Brennan - a winery that we had never heard of before. The tempranillo (that far south!!) and a vertical tasting from 2009, 2010 and 2011 which showed the development of the skills of the winemaker were highlights.
So with several dozen of the product to be sent to us we enjoyed stocking up our wine cellar.

A glass of bubbles to start

 After a rest and an upgrade of dress we were picked up by a complimentary taxi to take us to The Gantry for dinner. We were impressed with the 6 course degustation menu, but the 6 accompanying wines might have been a glass too far!!

 However we wine matched each of our three courses. I had pea and smoked bacon soup, followed by duckliver pate with cherries (really an entree) then roast peach and Mille Feuille for dessert.

Duncan's main

 Duncan had tomato, basil and red pepper soup then salt crusted venison - very tender - and a deconstructed lemon meringue pie where the lemon part was semi freddo and the base was a sprinkling of toasted crumbs and nuts.
I was highly delighted to see that they hadn't added the 15% surcharge for Otago Anniversary Day on, so I decided to add a tip - then at the till I mentioned this and he thanked me for my honesty and added it on - as well as the tip!!!

Cheers!

A truly memorable day. Duncan got his first payment of the pension the next day $61.13. Didn't quite cover the Birthday Celebrations!!