“Age is just a number. It’s totally irrelevant unless, of course, you happen to be a bottle of wine.”...

December 29, 2024 

Written on New Year's Day, January 1, 2025

We left Auckland and immobile land for a long voyage on a very rough sea towards Wellington. We'll be arriving there late today (Jan. 1) and staying overnight for the first and probably only time on this long voyage. the seas are quite rough and the ship has placed strategically located sea sickness bags all around the ship, especially by the elevators. So far, Randy and I have not needed them!

In Matiatia, New Zealand, Dec. 29, we did a short and very enjoyable winery tour. Actually, two wineries, Goldie Estate, one of, if not the first, wineries established in Matiatia, and The Shed, established just a little later. Matiatia (the town) did not want wineries in their area and fought against them. Additionally, wine "experts" said wine grapes would not grow well in the area. Oh, how wrong they were. It is not a large area but wine grape growing, and the making of wines is a large proportion of the land use now in Matiatia. New Zealand in general produces only 1% of the wines in the world, and Matiatia only produces 1% of New Zealand's production. Goldie Estate, itself, does not export any wine. The owner said he only produces 2000 cases a year and sells everything at the winery and local shops.

Seabourn lived up to it's (self-proclaimed) reputation of being an "ultra-luxury cruise" company with our tour of 26 people divided into two 24-passenger vans. 

Matiatia is another tender port (we will have a couple more on this voyage) so we had to stuff ourselves into the tenders (never an easy job for a couple of old farts!) before getting to our tour vans.

First our guide showed us a winery that looks more like a resort than a winery, Mudbrick Winery. We did no tasting or touring here.

During our visit to Goldie Estate Winery some of us followed the owner through his vineyard to stunning views over the bay.

The owner's wife runs the public part of the winery while he does all the behind-the-scenes stuff like blending the grapes and deciding what to trim off the grape vines.

Another part of the tasting room. The winery was closed to the public but opened just for us to tour and taste.

They believe is supporting the arts and the artist for this sculpture actually works for the winery in addition to having his own gallery.

The artist is Oliver Stretton-Pow and this is a kinetic sculpture of a heart with grape roots growing out of it. You can see more of his work at oliverstrettonpow.com.

My favorite, surprisingly, was a white, the Goldie Estate Causeway Chardonnay 2021

From this winery to the Shed, a very different experience. Their wine was ok, but nothing special (to me!) and this winery was open to the public while we were there, so not as intimate an experience.

This is the owner...

,,,but he says his son does most of the work!

One really nice thing they offered was a vertical tasting of a 2010 and a 2020 Cabernet/Franc wine.

And a tasting of a 1997 Cab/Merlot wine. Very tasty!

And so we go on to Auckland and it looks to be good weather!