Rick's on Seattle time and gets us up at 5:30am. Gosh, sun's not up til 7am!! Well' we still gots the rental car a few more hours, so we drive our proposed cycle route west to check on lodging (which proves fruitless), and drop the car back at the airport, pull bikes outta the back, reassemble them, and cycle the 3 miles back to Renwick, where we quickly decide to stay another day, so to be sure to pack, repack and pack some more, which we do til 2pm. Adam, an Aussie meteorologist from Brisbane says "Hey mates, shall we tour some wineries???" Let's see...
We got 3 hours. We got a map. We're thirsty. We bike half a mile to our first stop, Mahi Winery. Adam gulps his samples. Rick and I sip, smell and about gargle the delicate liquids, all the while trying to formulate intelligent sounding, but not nerdy, questions about wine making and grape growing. No purchases, darn...
Next Bladen Winery, where we taste a delightful, green capsicum smelling sauvignon blanc. Plus they had Brandy, a lazy as all heck ginger cat, who barely looked up from his sunny perch on an oak barrel. Next door is Framingham Cellars and another rack of fine offerings, plus an incredibly animated bar tendress who kept pouring us trials and exclaiming some expression (in Italian with a Kiwi accent), all of which seemed all the better considering that we'd had "a bit" by then. Rick liked the free crackers and the ladies bathroom, which he wandered into by accident. He said it had a wild sink full of nakeds, which I had to confirm. Somehow, we made it half a mile more, to the Huia tasting room, where we ran out the clock, polished off the sparkling wine bottles (darn, they just don't keep overnight) and wondered where the hostel was.
Fish and chips "takeaway" with the boys, a few beers for good measure, and general cross-cultural chit-chat til noone could stay awake, before Rick and I proclaimed today a success and retired to our dorm room that we were sharing with a 26 y.o. Swiss redhead... (oh, may the farting god be on my side tonight...
But we did learn a few things today>> aged rieslings have an oily smelling, "kerosene" bouquet, gewurztraminers go well with Thai food, and it's possible to sample lots of wine and still bicycle straight...
Sounds like Rick has widened the tasting horizons. By the time I'd tasted the Sauvignon blanc, the pinot noir, the sparkling Sauv. blanc, the pinot gris, and maybe had my arm twisted by the pourer to try the Chardonnay (bleh, I continue to think) and the Riesling (not bad, but no Sauvignon blanc), Gewurtz. was out of the question. -Ellen, back in Seattle
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