|
Excerpts from a week in the life of
Monday
Martin Bosley 5th Birthday Long Lunch
Colleen and I were invited to a glorious long lunch intended to celebrate the 5th anniversary of the Martin Bosley Yacht Club restaurant, one of New Zealand’s premier dining experiences located in the heart of the capital city Wellington.
Hatton Estate has been honoured to be served here with various signature dishes, and the lunch turned into a showcase of the best the restaurant team can deliver with our EC2 Chardonnay being paired with a divine dish of crispy skin salmon, celeriac-apple remoulade, ham braised turnips with ham foam.
The photos don’t do it justice , but needless to say all rumours are probably true, and yes we were still lunching at 7pm, although I believe there was dancing (to what we are still unclear about) and an unfeasibly large quantity of The Doctor Syrah served until a late hour.
Our thanks go out to Chris and the kind people at The Museum Hotel de Wheels, who put us up in a wonderful apartment for the night and of course to the City Council parking meter attendants of whom kindly left our car alone (outside the restaurant) until we could pick it up at a more sober hour!
Wednesday
Seba- The corporate tasting event
In the role of wine ambassador for Hatton Estate I often get invited to do many an interesting wine tasting at various venues.
Seba a relatively new bar in Fort Street Auckland, was the scene for a trade / corporate tasting with a number of good customers of Steve McKenzie, patron of easily the best bar and late night revelry venue in this reviving area.
Steve’s “six till eight pm, don’t worry we will be off for dinner” turned into my “ouch -gotta go its past midnight or I’ll turn into a pumpkin” as I eventually fled to the safety of my hotel room.
A fantastic night talking wine and swapping life adventures, but the pumpkin must have hit me on the head at some point as the next day was a significant challenge!
Sunday
The Loading Ramp Havelock North, Team Fun day
The day was loosely modelled around the Amazing Race contest with the added spin of teams being in fancy dress. This was really a feeble attempt to disguise the fact that Manager Alex likes dressing up in a Dame Edna outfit just as much as his fiancée Fiona likes fishnets and wielding a truncheon! Get that picture out of your head!
We had 7 teams turn up in various states of undress and general mayhem to blind taste and decide (guess) which was which out of Chardonnay, Sav Blanc and Riesling.
They then had to spit (like a winemaker-we suggest practice in the shower) a bottle of red wine (glass by glass/ mouthful by mouthful) into a picking-bin two metres away.
The goal was to get at least 180 ml into the bin- measured by pouring the residue into a glass- before the bottle (750ml) ran out.
A number of teams had to use more than one bottle as their aim was astray- to the detriment of their bonds at the fancy dress store- but eventually everyone hit the target and could move on to another of the 14 different tasks to be completed before the party began in earnest later on at the Loading Ramp.
We are still searching for more photos and shall release them when we have checked with the legal team!
Thank you to all who took part in a great week, especially those who provided baby sitting services and bacon sandwiches at various times as usual it’s the patience of those behind the scenes who enable us to have all the fun.
Watch out for more updates in the travel diary as we Tiki Tour about NZ in the lead up to Christmas!
|