Article & photos by Lenora A. Hayman.
I am happy to report that I had less jet-lag, after my 14½ hr. overnight, direct, non-stop flight on Air N.Z. from Vancouver to Auckland N.Z. I also noticed that in the pressurized cabin, the white wines seemed to loose their flavour and the reds tasted more astringent, so I had a glass of the white West Brook Marlborough Gewürztraminer 2011 with its lemon aromatics. A bonus was that the tomato juice actually tasted sweeter in the higher altitude as well!
The following day, an 8:00a.m. ride on the Sealink car & passenger ferry from Half Moon Bay in Auckland, took my cousins & I on the 17.7kms (11mls), 45 mins. trip to Kennedy Point on Waiheke Island in the Hauraki Gulf. The walk-on Fullers Ferry sails 40mins from Downtown Auckland to Matiatia wharf, Waiheke where you can pick up a taxi.
Waiheke with 8,730 permanent residents & 3,400 folk with holiday homes is N.Z’s third most densely populated island after the North & South islands. We saw fluffy, white seagulls with bright red feet and beaks strutting amongst the shells on Onetangi Beach, recently opened, red flowers on N.Z’s Christmas tree, the Pohutukawa, at little Oneroa beach, and Phoenix Palms on Palm Beach where there was a huge, red wind sculpture. Oneroa, the largest of the Waiheke villages has a good beach, and a variety of restaurants and accommodation.
However we were heading to Mudbrick Vineyard & Restaurant on Church Bay Road to first visit their Cellar Door for both standard & premium wine tastings with Tom French. Tom said that the vines were first planted in 1992 by the present owners Nick & Robyn Jones who now have 2 Waiheke vineyard sites. One at the Mudbrick Vineyard at Church Bay with the North Bay clay slopes & salty, sea-air influence and the other at Shepherds Point at Onetangi, within the Stony Ridge Valley, providing a different terroir.
After tasting a variety of wines in the sunshine, we moved into the Mudbrick Restaurant, built from mudbricks, which we were told “do not vary their internal temperatures by more than one degree in any 24-hour period-creating perfect conditions for aging and storing wine”!
While soft rays of sunshine cascaded on us through the opened slats in the roof, we dipped the housemade bread and olives into the extra virgin Waiheke olive oil and freshly chopped rosemary.
Our shared entrée( appetizer in Canada) of Atlantic King Scallops & Prawns, wrapped in shredded, crunchy Kataifi pastry went well with the gooseberry hints of passionfruit & grassiness of my Mudbrick Sauvignon Blanc Marlborough 2011.
We ordered sides of truffled potato mash & beans to go with our main courses.
To accompany his twice cooked pork belly, Roger chose a glass of the Merlot/Cabernet 2010 Waiheke that won the Trophy & Pure Gold Medal Air NZ Wine Awards 2011 with cassis, blueberry, plum & fine chalky tannins.
His wife Margaret Anne said the aromas of cassis, cracked pepper & dark plums in her Shepherds Point Syrah(Waiheke) paired well with her Alpine Merino Lamb rump.
Chef Mathias Schmitt prepared my pan-seared, longline-caught snapper with the white sausage, Boudin Blanc, filled with both prawns & snapper & a garnish of squid in ink, angel hair pasta with curry foam.
For dessert, I sipped a chilled passionfruit soup with spiced macaroon & coconut sorbet and the others had a rich Black Forest cake and a crème brûlée.
After lunch we strolled by their potager, the French term for an ornamental vegetable garden, where the fresh produce is grown. While a group, with wine glasses in hand, were strolling through the vineyards, we worked off our meal by huffing and puffing up the hill to view a worthwhile, magnificent panorama of Hauraki Gulf Marine Park with the iconic dome of Rangitoto Island, a dormant volcano, linked by an artificial causeway, to the older Motutapu Island.
When you go:
www.mudbrick.co.nz Mudbrick Vineyard & Restaurant, Waiheke Island, N.Z.
www.sealink.co.nz Car & passenger ferry for flexibility to see & do more.
www.fullers.co.nz Fullers Passenger Ferry Auckland to Waiheke Island, N.Z.
All 4 photos by Lenora A. Hayman.