Relaxing at Poronui Ranch

Home > About Us > Michaels Travel Diary > Ranch Relaxing

Michael's Travel Diary Poronui Ranch

Recently Colleen and I had the pleasure of mixing a little business with a mountain of pleasure at the rustic luxury hideaway Poronui Ranch in the heart of the North Island of New Zealand about 35 minutes from Taupo on the Taupo to Napier road.

Poronui does fresh air, huge vistas and oodles of relaxing along with fine food and spectacular hunting, tramping (hiking) and fly fishing. Not that we were there for that…..you spotted the fine food part…..

We were guests of the multi-talented Eve Reilly manager of this ruggedly beautiful place to serve our wines alongside food prepared by our friend and favourite Chef Martin Bosley- winner of Best Restaurant in New Zealand two years running plus winner two years in a row of the Montana Food Art Awards.

This was going to be a challenge as Martin and his team craft food that excites and entrances your palate and we would need to get it right as there would be 24 other paying guests in attendance.

On the right is the menu and the wines we served – we took along some of our talented winemaker David Ramonteu’s family wines as a counterpoint to our wines and the multi flavoured creations from the kitchen.

We kicked off in the “games lounge” with a wine tasting showing the newer wines from the Hatton Estate cellar door, which enabled us to get to know everyone’s preferences early on. We then launched downstairs into the cellar for a beautifully presented dinner. A total of 28 sat down for the feast and the ooohs and ahhhs intermingled with little bursts of applause built to a crescendo as the meal progressed with much debate on each perfectly crafted ingredient and wine match. Martin and Amy his Sous for the evening joined us at the last course to rounds of applause and congratulations.

Highlights for me would be our EC2 Chardonnay 06 with the crab, The Doctor Syrah 05 with the virtual foie gras (yes my MS friends, brave but it worked) and of course the pièce de résistance was Tahi 2004 in Magnum with the absolutely sublime venison.

Our thanks of course go to the wonderful people at Poronui, Eve and her team and our brave and resourceful guide Grant Petherick. Grant took us four-wheel driving the next day to a remote fishing spot where we left the fish alone and lunched royally for so long we almost missed the massage before dinner! Thanks to Julia and Martin Bosley ably assisted by Amy for not only cooking up a storm and partying late but being great companions on the chill out day.

Most importantly thank you to the guests for whom the evening was arranged. A fun group of people who laughed at my jokes (that’s what you were laughing at right guys….!) and graciously agreed with my wine matches by drinking everything- I hope to see you again with more wines next year!

Click here to buy the Hatton Estate Dinner pack – a collection of wines served at this dinner and check back on the shopping cart in the next week to buy the French wines served that night; we have a few mixed cases available.