Our New Zealand adventures are slowly taking us northern up the country. We left Queenstown and headed for the Marlborough region which is most popular for Sauvignon Blanc. Well, that is really what all of NZ is known for but Marlborough is the SB capital!
Our first stop was to Drylands which is owned by Constellation. They are a major producer of SB. They wouldn't tell us the exact number of cases but let's just say looking at their facility, it is probably close to 1 million cases. Their head winemaker showed us around the property which was very nice since they are right in the middle of harvest. At the end of the tour, he guided us through a competitive tasting of Sauv Blanc. It was very interesting trying all of the different brands and seeing the similarities and differences between each of the expressions.
This property was probably the most similar in arrangement to Sonoma-Cutrer. This is only a production facility. All of their sales, marketing, finance, etc is located at their parent company, back in the US.
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| Lots and lots of production capacity! |
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| Instead of pumping out tanks, they had hydrolic tippers custom made for them |
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| Harvest may be tough work but at least the workers have a nice view. |
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| They arranged a competitive tasting of all of Constellation's New Zealand brands. |
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| Can't forget the group shot! |
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| Shannon and I happy to be learning. |
Our afternoon facility brought us to a custom crush facility. Basically, what that means is that people who don't have their own winery, pay Marlborough Vintner's to produce wine for them. A lot of these types of brands are called virtual brands or phantom brands. There really is no "place" just a label and a story.
Their winemaker is from Chile and has been working here for a number of years. He was telling us in the off season, they also make cider and fruit juices to keep the cash flow coming into the business.
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| Marlborough Vintner's had a Chilean winemaker! |
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| Making wine |
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| Our photographer got a little artistic with this one. |
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| Safety first! We didn't want a forklift to run over anyone. |
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