We travelled a different way back to Arrowtown on Friday, with a stop in the small town of Lawrence for a coffee. We decided we would have a picnic lunch in Cromwell, where we’d spent five days earlier on this trip, before checking into our little cabin accommodation in Arrowtown. It is a cute village and we stayed right in the heart – everything was a short walk away.
To finish our wine tasting in this region, we carefully selected the following two. Mainly because you cannot visit them all, and research and word of mouth had suggested these two well worth a visit.
Peregrine Estate
The roof above the cellar door and the main cellar has been designed to resemble a Peregrine Falcon’s wing.
The oak barrels stored in the room behind the glass, all contain Pinot Noir. Once it has finished maturing, it will be bottled ready for sale as their ‘flagship’ Pinot Noir, that sells for $55NZ per bottle.
I needed to make a booking for a tasting here – $30NZ each.
We could each select four wines to taste. I tasted the Chardonnay because I was still on a quest to find one I really liked over here. And while it was very nice, we really had no more room in our bags.
We were the only ones at the winery, and so had plenty of time to ask questions and to learn about the wine label that is well respected in New Zealand and overseas. We learnt that most of their wines though are sold within New Zealand. They were very good wines too.
A few minutes drive from here was the Cellar Door called Kinross.
It is interesting, and different, in so far as it is a cellar door for five small wineries that do not have their own cellar doors. A bit like we had found in Cromwell with the Cork & Cap.
I needed to book us in for a tasting here as well, and even though we arrived a little early, Francesco (who was from Tuscany), was happy to lead our tasting. It was $25 NZ each.
We had heard about Valli – as these wines and the winemaker (Grant Taylor) have won lots of awards and are well known. Taylor was once the winemaker for Gibbston Valley Wines (which was our first stop on our way to Cromwell and only a few kilometres away). The Wild Irishman, is actually two Irish men. One of them is Alan Brady, who was the pioneer of winemaking in this region. He planted the vines on Gibbston Valley Winery in 1983.
It always fascinates us how interconnected the winemaking is in each region. And, even across regions.
We were able to taste wines from all five winemakers, and we were impressed by them all.
This cellar door has a great offer on postage and handling to Australia – the best we had come across on our travels in Central Otago.
So, we are expecting some of these wines too when we get home.
After returning the rental car, we made it to Queenstown Airport with plenty of time before our flight back to Brisbane.
We have both very much enjoyed our visit here. Thanks for following along.
Our next adventure on a wine tour will commence in September – we’re heading to Spain and Portugal. In the meantime, we need to get ourselves back into shape and ready for the task in front of us.
Jane and Mick's Holiday Adventures 