Wairarapa Wine Festival

 

The Wine Festival was held on 21March. A three stage journey saw us on a bus to the Wellington train station, on a train to Canterton, and then on a bus to Ruamahunga River in Wairarapa.

Other than the tunnel section on the train, the journey was very scenic.

Upon arrival we were presented with our tasting glass that had a very nifty lanyard thingy attached – this kept a full glass of wine dangling from your neck in the upright position. Very useful!

   

 

View through the train window	The Ruamahunga River bank (try say that 10x fast)

 

We started with a glass of wine each and then onto some food.

Ryan went for a venison sandwich with plum sauce and rocket. I went for sushi (which was really a bunch of rolled rice with some cucumber … sad sad).

Post lunch we progressed through a number of estates.

The wine varietals of this area are predominantly Pinot Gris, Pinot Noir, Sav Blanc and then a little Chardonnay, Cab blends and Rose.

The whites were all pretty good to excellent. The range of easy drinking to astoundingly complex was fun. The reds had some great glasses and some ‘throw out on the lawn’ glasses.

We were lucky to have a sunny day right until about 5pm.

The next day was cold, very very cold and overcast. So fortunate to have the opportunity to lie about on the grass, eat and drink and generally be merry.

There were a variety of musical acts performing, from country complete with fiddle, to a 60’s cover band. Towards the end of the day people were sleeping or dancing. Great to see even the oldies having a go on the dance lawn.

 

			One of the wine estates … nice logo I think
	Some people were better organised than others!	There was a bunch of farm  equipment behind the tents – made for good jungle gyms for the kids	Ryan doing the dance of joy complete with swinging wine glass
	Actual vine grapes that tasted surprisingly good.		The littlies danced …
and the oldies too	Ryan’s point of view by late afternoon.

              

On the train back from the festival our nap was rudely interrupted by some loud Afrikaans conversation; the Bulls rugby team had just boarded the train.

Quite an amusing bunch (especially walking all crunched over to avoid bashing their heads on the ceiling of the train)