Renwick / Marlborough wine region

---

By the time we got to Marlborough Sounds, it was sunshining, so the Sound looked very idylic. We arrived at Picton and drove straight to Renwick to stay at Watsons Way Backpackers. Our hosts were very friendly, offering plenty of advice and making us feel at home. The double en-suite room was more like staying at a hotel and the kitchen was quite large - excellent accommodation, comes throughly recommended. We even got a little chocolate when we left, a nice touch by the lovely hosts. Renwick itself is a small, quaint village surrounded by wineries. (An important point for fellow travellers is that it does have a petrol station and it does have a mini-market, although there is much wider choice in Blenheim)

The search for the ultimate Savignon Blanc
Despite being a relatively young wine region, Marlborough has a worldwide reputation for its Savignon Blanc wine. As this is a personal favourite of ours at home, we were on a mission to find a sumptious Savignon. We just had to hire bikes and go round the wineries. Our bikes only cost $10 each for the day (from Watsons Way). We headed out, surrounded by glorious views of the hills around (some snow covered) and started our tasting at a vineyard called Lake Chalice, which does import to the UK. The wines were quite pleasant but the 2006 savignon wasn't as citrus tasting as we liked. The lady hosting our tasting was very friendly, telling us that to buy a winery in the Marlborough area was now very expensive due to the success of the area.

We then cycled on to Vintners, but practically bumped our noses on the door - they were no longer doing wine tastings. The great thing about this area is that it's never far to the next vineyard...over the road in fact. The Village, a cellar that offers boutique wines for tasting from some of the smaller vineyards in the area that do not export. Here we found an unusual Savignon that tasted of asparagus, not to everyones taste but we quite liked it. At The Village you also get to taste olive oils and bizarrely, pretzels - which seemed popular with the Kiwi Experience bus that arrived.

Our next stop was Cloudy Bay, influenced by passing a merry couple staying at our Backpacker's who'd just come from there and recommended it. It was only about 11:00am, so I really did wonder if they'd last the day! A few kilometres later we arrived, but none of the wines were quite to our taste. Heading back, against the (still strong) wind, which was pretty tough, we stopped at another boutique winery called Huia. The guy here was very entertaining and positively encouraging us to drink more and try the whole range of wines. The sparkling wine was nice, but we still hadn't found the right Savignon. We then tried Domain George Michael and Nautilus, but again the Savignon's were very disappointing. At all the wineries we had tried the 2006 savignon and we found out that the harvest of grapes was quite late that year and the favourable weather conditions altered the taste of the Savignon's so that they won't be quite as citrus, gooseberry tasting as we were expecting/like. After visting six wineries we decided it was time to head home while we could still see and cycle fairly well As soon as we got back, we fell into a drunken coma for two hours and woke up refreshed, ready to cook.

Overall, we were very pleased we'd decided to come to Renwick rather than the more popular Blenheim. Watson's Way was superb and the wineries very welcoming. There were some wanting to charge for tastings though - but we avoided all of those.

---

Photos

Marlborough Sound
Taken from Ferry as we approached Picton

Marlborough wine region
Surrounded by hills, some even snow covered.

Winery
Lake Chalice

Huia Winery
A boutique winery. Very friendly, gave lots of information and had about 7 wines to taste