Living the dream

Nelson has been voted the most desirable place to live in New Zealand and I can see why. We've been here for a few days now staying in a lovely house that already feels like home. Our hosts have gone away for the weekend, leaving their own house open with a note telling us to help ourselves to whatever we need while they're away. How trusting is that?

Nelson has all the elements I enjoy in a place. It's close to beautiful countryside, mountains and beaches with great cafes, shops, restaurants and some fantasitc vineyards less than 30 minutes away - more on these in a moment.

Since we've been here, we've had some great meals, courtesy of Mark, cycled to a beautiful empty beach and today tasted some fantastic boutique wines. We decided to try out the Nelson wine region rather than the more commercial Marlborough. I am a big fan of the Marlborough wines and looking at the wine map have tried >60% of them so it made sense to try something new. Mark is not a fan of the 'flowery' sauvignon blancs synonymous with the Marlborough region, so we were on a mission to find some whites and reds to satisfy his palette.

Four vineyards later and we've bought some gems and discovered some unique people;

There was Bob Glover from Glovers' Winery. After navigating the potholer's delight of a driveway and stopping Mark from grabbing a very fat chicken for dinner, we found Bob up a ladder. You'd have thought by the ramshackle state of his buildings and tasting room he'd just opened up for business, but we soon found out he'd been making wines for 25 years. This is just the way he does business. We left with two bottles of wine one which was totally unidentifiable as the electicity was off so he was unable to add a lable or seal the cork.

The next vineyard was a real find, Himmelsfeld, run by Beth an ex nurse. Beth's dream was to buy some land and produce wine. She found her plot in 1991 and produced her first vintage a few years later. She has a flock of Romney marsh sheep that are adorable and just 4 wines to choose from, one of which is a Gold medal winner. Beth really is living the dream.

Back at 'home' and we're celebrating our two week anniversary with a Mark special and one of our wine purchases. The sun is shining, the birds are chirping and it doesn't get much better than this.