I was down there for a big annual tourism conference in Auckland and always like to see or do something new so Jeremy came up with a great idea to help me get over the jetlag. After 40 hours without sleep and 32 hours of travelling from my start point of Manchester Airport, he decided that the only possible solution was to take me on an intensive course in eating and drinking in Hawke's Bay.
I was allowed a shower, change and coffee at Auckland Airport and we then flew over to Napier to collect a hire car. As I was not feeling tip-top and as the car was a slightly embarrassing blue boy racer mobile with a spoiler, I let JP drive and we went straight to Elephant Hill winery for lunch.
Things were looking up after a couple of cleansing ales followed by the lamb fry (lamb's liver with a trio of onions) and some Pinot Noir. Jeremy had chicken livers so I had some of this too before we headed off down the road to Clearview Estate for a wine tasting. Well we went down the road some time later after first going a couple of miles up the road in the wrong direction courtesy of Jeremy's notoriously bad sense of direction.
Clearview introduced me to an unbelievably good Noble Harvest Chardonnay. There was no way I was paying £25 for a half bottle of wine but after tasting it I caved in immediately and broke out the credit card. The challenge now is to resist the temptation to open it during the next 5 years as the winemaker Tim Turvey was on hand to promise that it just gets better and better. Of course I hope it gets better and better. If I open it in 5 years and it tastes average or just plain rubbish then I will have to accept that my judgement was disastrously impaired by a lack of sleep combined with the euphoria of lunchtime drinking!
4 comments:
Well fellow bloggers let me tell you Paul's embarrassment about the "boy racer" nature of our transport lasted only until he was physically competent to pilot it. Then I didn't get a look in. Should also mention that Paul didn't put up a huge fight before allowing himself to be put through the nightmare of two days of bacchanalian excesses.
We had to go that fast so that nobody would recognise us.
This is true, I did not try to get out of it on the grounds of conscientious objection.
Sounds like I visited a year too early, although I don't think I'd have been eating liver of anything, unless there's a New Zealand liver grape I don't know about?
Veggies can eat liver actually because it isn't like real meat. The word offal is derived from off + fall as this was basically throw away stuff. It would in fact be selfish and wasteful not to eat it and is just the same as wearing leather shoes. Would you eat a donated kidney if there was one spare or maybe black pudding made from a pint of donated blood? Good quality protein, tastes great and nobody died in the process.
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