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So I thought I did a good thing by taking notes and adding pictures to notes… Note to self, so much harder, however I did add a plugin to my wordpress so I can organzie the pictures into folders…so much easier

• Clos Henri-Marie

French owned-Loire valley 

Road built on fault line to winery all wines use same process but the soils are different

3 types of soil

Bourgeois family

Land matched their land at home 

~Solange-similar to champagne 

Name of chapel old Presbyterian church. Wife of Henri

Smooth-need more of a 👅 

~Sauvignon Blanc estate blend of stone and clay white peach taste

50/50 blend. Tastes a little like the muscadine, but nice… not really flinty. Dotty likes the smell, mommy could taste the peach. A little fuller body and sweeter but not sickeningly than the ones we have been buying

~Side by side

Otira-stone soil for vines water is deeper pineapple, lemon lime

Waimunga-clay holds water lighter on the nose- thicker legs

~Pinot Noir

      Estate-blend of soil, only grown on their soil raspberry note and aged in oaky barrels

       Waimaunga-clay. Retained the water tastes drier and oaky barrels

Grapes grow closer to ground and compete for water. Organic 

Pinot noir hand picked softer grape

Sauvignon Blanc machine picked less time and keeps grapes fresh

Harvest time March April

~ Patience
Late harvest July tastes of honey. Doesn’t happen every year. Need to age 15 months fermented and aged in barrel 

• Hans Herzog estate- from Zurich , less restrictions in production than in NZ than Switzerland ultra boutique over 20 varietals of grapes 

12 Hectares low yield philosophy. Organic and vegan have bees and wildfires handpick the grapes naturally occurring yeast age in barrels and then in bottles 

~Arneis smell pear grape grows in Italy grows well in Marlborough not thick not flinty not Dotty’s favorite… good with chicken 😉

Our wine steward Sharon 

~Sauvignon Blanc- no added sugar, French oak 20 months. Added little bit semillion bit of a French grape. A lot thicker and more yellow dry after taste. 

Does not say chicken. Dotty likes it better. Not bad. Does finish dry to me. 

~Pinot Gris 

Thick skin late to harvest. Leaves the skin on. Smells of apricot! Really good with risotto, spicy food. 

~Pinot Noir buttery didn’t get the berries you should see through Pinot noir

Tempranillo French oak 3 years bottle for another 3. Am really digging the reds. Not feeling sulfites 

Jim chose this. Flashback. No dhit in there i was.. Coast of bravo. Tour would take them up to bbq. Given a little glass to fill up from fountain. This was the wine. 

Maybe I should keep my typos. We still have 3 more wineries to go. But we get lunch next!

The verdelho, we wondered if it were similar to the vinho verde, but they were out of it!

Sharon said that NZ was the first to invent the screwtops and the French said it wouldn’t work! Imagine that we love screwtops

• Saint Clair Vineyard Kitchen

Ashley has his WECT which is a step closer to being a sommelier. 

~Saint Clair Rose

Preserved peach and lemon flavor hit of meringue   Fruit driven American oak. It is actually quite good, except it is oaky. Ashley says the beast is Chardonnay. Everyone can make a Sauvignon. 10 months in oak but new oak. 

Black garlic. Can make desserts it is savory and sweet. It is awesome. This is Bob our driver. His family is from Yorkshire England. He trained to be a be a PE teacher (he actually could have been a professional cricket player but decided that he would have earned the same amount of money as teaching ) before becoming a principal of a special ed school. Ranged from behavior to slower processing learners. 

~Pinot noir. Second most grown in Marlborough . 4 prevailing winds in Marlborough. Pinot noir is a fragile grape. They grow these in a more sheltered area. Grown in an ohlnmachwr? It is smooth, clear. Great balance under growing a ferment of 25% of new oak. Won champion of New Zealand. Bob says the better Pinot noirs are down in the Otago peninsula. 

Very dry. 1.8 grams of residual sugar  supposedly ending taste of watermelon. It is light and beautiful. 

Launched St Clair in 1994. Farm named st Clair. First to grow Sauvignon Blanc at Dillon’s point at wairau 

Very oaky 

Capsicum, passion fruit, grapefruit and ends with sea salt

Wine merchant Maze Row sells in US

~ Chardonnay Preserved peach and lemon flavor hit of meringue   Fruit driven American oak. It is actually quite good, except it is oaky. Ashley says the beast is Chardonnay. Everyone can make a Sauvignon. 10 months in oak but new oak. 

~Pinot noir. Second most grown in Marlborough . 4 prevailing winds in Marlborough. Pinot noir is a fragile grape. They grow these in a more sheltered area. Grown in an ohlnmachwr? It is smooth, clear. Great balance under growing a ferment of 25% of new oak. Won champion of New Zealand. Bob says the better Pinot noirs are down in the Otago peninsula. 

• Forrest winery.  Doctors. Both owners were doctors. Also heavily involved with changing from cork to screw caps

Chenin, gewurtztraminer, and a couple of reds stable temps. Gaps in between the vines lets the tractors through. Machine harvesting viticulturally the vines last 

~Doctors Sauvignon Blanc younger leaves more sugar. Canopy manage (trim leaves) less sugar residual. Dotty likes this one. In fact I think it is Gambol adventures approved!

Beautiful location very relaxing. Heaters, bean bags, tasting areas. 

~chenin Blanc. Leans acidly nice in the middle between Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc Switzerland of wine. Wine steward Huw from wales (Hugh)

7grams of residual sugar , lychee, rose petal really not that sweet. Quite nice actually. Dotty can smell the rose in it. 

Syrah 10 years old. Best fruit of the north island and pressed. Peppery. Smells quite lovely. 

Buttery smooth, dry. Huw says he would drink this and then take over the world pillaging and what not. 

Bobby the wine dog! Brittany spaniel and a border collie 

• Lawson’s Dry Hills

  ~ pink dry rose made from Pinot no

Nigel 

The grapes are grown in the vineyard owned by lawsons by the sea. Gravel  soil roots are getting drained. Soil is alluvial. 

Dry Riesling 2020

~Sauvignon Blanc 2023

Old French barrels, wild yeast-get from vineyards maybe 5-6-7, smaller batch, 2 plots of grapes. Restrictions for reserve are less strict. Mainly the reserves are created differently than the big batch. 

~Pinot Gris reserve  

I love this one. 

~Chardonnay fully barrel fermented. French oak. Little bit smoky oak. Creamy, delicious haven’t tried it yet. Jim seems to like it. Mommy said she could drink it. Here I go. Okay not as bad as I thought. Definitely not a California oak. It is very rich. I could have one glass. Maybe not a whole bottle. Really grows on you. Tastes a lot like the unoaked Chardonnay from the Finger Lakes

~Pinot Noir Reserve (did you know some Pinot noirs use egg whites for filtering? They take it out again but if your bottle says may contain eggs that is why. This is mainly for reds. Whites may use the casein from milk to do the same thing. Which is why we read some whites say may contain milk. – Lawson and a lot of other wineries use a plant based filtering product)

Principal red grape. Night time can cold quite quickly so other grapes do not do as well. Pinot lighter in color and tannin. The Pinot grape does not like warmer weather. It gets sad and droopy. 

These were some of the bottles for sale at Lawson’s

Dinner: Bacon, egg, cheeseburgers cooked on grill.

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