Why Is It…?

Carol and Roger’s last stop on the South Island was Marlborough…New Zealand’s most notable wine region.  Interestingly enough, some of the wine varietals we like the least back home we found the most tasty here.  What a difference a change in terroir (climate and soil) can make!  

Like in Australia, wine production here is considered a business and the scale is growing as fast as they can plant new vineyards.

Unlike Italy, there are no rules for making wine.  In fact, many of the vintners don’t even tend their own vineyards.  They hire outside companies to do the work for them, and those outside companies will trim, prune, and harvest as many vineyards as they can win contracts for (Our Italian friend Carlo would shudder at the thought).  

To maximize the juice in a grape, vines need to be pruned so the energy of the plant goes into producing fruit instead of new leaves.  In Italy, this pruning is carefully done by hand and is considered an art.  In New Zealand, a machine drives between the rows of grapes trimming the tops and sides of the plants….giving them the appearance of a platoon of Marines standing in formation.  (Carlo would shake his head in disbelief.)

The cycling here is...in our opinion... the best on the South Island.  A bit farther south…in the Waipara wine district…it’s also quite good.  Quiet roads, rolling hills, pretty scenery.  

There is a very small population on the South Island and consequently few paved roads other than the highways.  They are narrow, twisting, have no shoulders, and are heavily travelled by large trucks, tour buses, and hundreds of newbies driving camper vans.  Plus, it is rumored to rain a lot - we had beautiful weather almost every day for a month. In our opinion too dangerous for any sane person to ride a bike.  The bike tour companies have what they euphamistically call “transfers” (van rides) between the scattered locations they think are safe enough to ride.

Not so in Marlborough wine country where there are actually paved side roads.    There has to be some way to get to all those wineries after all.  Many…admittedly not all…of the roads have shoulders and signs warning motorists of the presence of cyclists.  Which raises the question that prompted this blog post:  Why is it the best cycling is around vineyards, no matter which country you’re in?  

A few other random notes….

While riding through Marlborough wine country, we spotted this harrier…one of the few raptors native to New Zealand.

The night before leaving the South Island on the ferry, we were graced with this sunset in Picton.

Yes, it is true there are more sheep than people in New Zealand.  We couldn’t leave the South Island without acknowledging this.