We left the ferry in Picton after a relaxing 3 hour journey from the North Island. Hopping in yet another rental car, we drove off to Marlborough country (no, not that one) which is one of the South Island´s top wine producing regions. We decided to concentrate our wine tasting to the wineries in Blenheim. In Wellington, I had found this great NZ food magazine called Cuisine which was chockfull of recipes, restaurant reviews, wine information and luckily- a great list of top wineries to visit region by region. From this list, I chose 4 wineries: Framingham,Huia, Mudhouse, and Cloudy Bay (this last one, because I have tried their wine in the US and wanted to check out the winery.)
First of all, we were expecting to deal with droves of people and tour buses, but it was very very quiet! In fact, at each of the wineries we went to, we were usually the only people, or at the most there were less than six people tasting wine. Further, all the tastings were free and there were no sales pressure. A good thing too, what with the limited space we have, it wouldn´t make sense to stuff anything in our backpack. Another (small) bummer is that some of the smaller wineries only export a few of their wines to the U.S. and the price per case comes to something like $300 US. Anyways, here are my thoughts about the wineries and wines. Not quite up to the level of Wine Spectator, I´m afraid!!
(Note: it would have been much easier to do this when I actually had the wine in hand!)
Framingham
2004 Sauvignon Blanc (SB)is the best known NZ wine so each winery usually had it as their best seller. Framingham´s 2004 SB is wonderful, very light with passion fruit and citrus-y notes. Seems like it would go well with Thai food.
2003 Pinot Noir: Somewhat spicy and rich tasting. Would be good to drink now, but the wine folks suggested cellaring it for up to 3 years.
Huia (named after a bird unique to NZ. Its tailfeathers were highly sought after by Maori and Europeans)
2004 Gewurztraminer: Peachy scent. Also a mix of spices- I came up with ginger for one of the spices (the wine folks said nutmeg is another). Also slight hints of pineapple!
2004 Huia Riesling: First thing I noticed was a sweet scent, almost like honeysuckle. Then a citrus-y, not too sweet taste on the palate. I would drink this by itself or with cheese
Mud House (our new favorite NZ winery)
2004 SB: Lime and grassy scents and flavor. I could drink this one quite happily by itself.
2003 Riesling. Definitely a winner. slightly sweet and mango and passionfruit scents. The wine folks suggested breaking out fruit or blue cheese (aka ´stinky cheese´ according to Dev) to nibble on.
Cloudy Bay
2004 SB: very different- tasted earthy, like tomatoes that have been grown in a garden, not the odorless ones at the grocery store.
A lot of the other wineries told us that although CB had had great wine in the past, it was slipping in quality and lot of the smaller wineries were catching up or exceeding them in quality.
After wine country, we drove to Kaikoura-well known for whale watching. The evening we arrived, we managed to get in a cliff walk.
We had a gorgeous view of the water and saw many seals swimming about. The tide was out far enough that we felt sure that we wouldn´t get caught, so we lazily walked ovre the rocks then into meadow and scrub lands. At one point, we realized we were not alone.....we were walking on private sheep land!! 
( we had to climb over several electrified fences- luckily no accidents!)
The whale watching trip the next morning was fantastic. Our guides set our expectations fairly low, saying that while we would definitely see whales, we might only see one or two. We actually came across 5!! The captain was in communication with other boats, and every time someone spotted a whale, he would call for everyone to sit down and gun the boat to where the whales were. These whales are huge! The ones we saw were about 20 meters long. Watching the whales dive was the best; before they dove down for the final time, they would spout and then hold their tails aloft out of the water, before finally going into the deep. I also got a chance to finally read Whale Rider, which I really enjoyed. The book actually has some more mystical elements to it that was not shown in the movie. I highly recommend it!
Oh, and these final pictures is of the sunset and the dessert I ordered at Finz (yes, i had to go partly cause of the name--you know.. Neil Finn...Finz..anyways!) - a seafood restaurant right on the beach that we ate at. They made me a wonderful vegetarian dish (even better than I have had at some fancy restaurants in SF) and topped it off with a wonderful chocolate mousse! Are you listening, restaurants in the US????
-Smruti
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