Wine Appreciation

For the past five weeks, I was enrolled in a wine appreciate course. New Zealand is full of many fine wines, so I took the opportunity to learn a bit about them. Oddly enough, my two favourite wines by the end of the class were European wines. Gewurztraminer, an Italian wine, is my favourite white wine, which is also made in New Zealand very nicely. Beaujolais, a French wine, is my favourite red wine. They are both pretty mild wines without any sharp bite or oaky flavour to them. There are a ton of other wines I did not get a chance to try, however I feel that I good a pretty good basic overview of wines. The course was run by Geoff Weston, the owner of the World's Most Southern Winery in the world. He is quite proud of this feat, but I suppose this may not be too difficult of a task if you live in the South Island of New Zealand. Geoff was an excellent teacher though - very full of life and passion for wine. If you ever get the chance to to take a wine class, I definitely suggest it. Below are pictures I took at Geoff's winery. We went to his winery for the last class and had an official tasting. His winery is in his own backyard. It is a beautiful property. He seems very happy doing what he does. I would be so happy to have a life similar to his when I am older. If you want to order his wine, go to this link.

I am looking forward to the next two weeks. It's Easter break here at the University. I will be travelling all around the South Island and even fly into the capital, Wellington, for a few days. Some of the activities on the unofficial intinerary are white water rafting, glacier walking, swimming with dolphins and tramping. I cannot wait! I will update my blog with tons of pics and stories when I get back. If you want to contact me, e-mail me. I will check my e-mails at internet cafes on the road. I will offically be back in Dunedin on April 27th.