Our day began in Auckland where we got up before the sun rose to be ready for our flight to Blenheim, in the heart of the New Zealand wine county.  Upon arrival at the Auckland airport we saw Brent drive up in his 1967 Corvette that he bought in Maine.

He came to the airport to check on his business, Retro Espresso, which renovates old Airstream trailers and turns them into coffee kiosks at airports.  As he said, “I treasure anything that is old”.  Here is his “shop” in the Auckland airport.

After being paged to slim down our luggage weight, we boarded the prop plane for the short trip to Blenheim, the heart of the Marlborough wine country.

After a short flight we were soon to be at our new location, the Marlborough Vintners Hotel.  A place that is to us, is completely remarkable in it’s perfection.

The vines are straight and bearing their fruit.

Our accommodations are nothing short of remarkable in terms of design and sense of place, a beautiful resort parked among vineyards as far as you can see while being elegantly minimalist.  Mountains are silhouetted in the distance at every direction.  If Auckland was San Francisco, then we are now in Napa.

 

After a trek through some of the other vineyards this afternoon, seeing their beautiful flora juxtaposed against their antique motorcycles  we hung out in our courtyard and caught up on email while sipping (swilling) the local wine.

 

 

We finished it off with a light dinner of small plates and toured the beautiful vegetation of the kitchen garden.