It seems its wine-o-clock time again.

Grey­town, Mar­t­in­bor­ough and Glad­stone are wak­ing up from win­ter and prepar­ing for Toast Mar­t­in­bor­ough next week­end.  The tick­ets are all sold for this year oth­er than some pack­ages with Rydges if you’re super keen (bear in mind that does mean a sloshy old bus ride over that hill and back…), but there’s anoth­er (maybe bet­ter?) option com­ing soon if you missed out.

The Wairara­pa Wines Har­vest Fes­ti­val will be held on 15 March 2014 in the Glad­stone area.  This one is still a bit more in its infan­cy and is at ‘The Cliffs’ river­side domain so all the offer­ings are con­ve­nient­ly in one place, but still includes some of the Wairarapa’s best wine and food provi­dores, includ­ing some of the new­er Glad­stone offer­ings.  If the music is sim­i­lar to last year’s line-up (rec­og­nize some of these — Way out West, The Shenani­gans, The Noo­dles, Bar­ry Saun­ders?), then it’s guar­an­teed to pro­duce a live­ly atmos­phere and be a fun day out.

Tick­ets on sale 27 Novem­ber.

And in hon­our of ‘wak­ing up from win­ter’ yours tru­ly and Mr yours tru­ly had a week­end jaunt around the Wairara­pa this week­end.  Delight­ful.

Deserv­ing of men­tion in the food and wine stakes were (and apolo­gies up front for using Trip Advi­sor links for some of these small­er estab­lish­ments who don’t have their own web­sites, but they’ll give you a taste):

  • The 2012 pinot gris at Mur­doch James in tan­dem with a tasty chick­en liv­er pate, apple jel­ly and cros­ti­ni.
  • Murdoch JamesA cou­ple of Salute’s tapas in Grey­town – porci­ni roast­ed and truf­fled duck risot­to with caramelized onions, thyme, green peas and crispy duck quack­ling (yep quack­ling), and crispy fried lamb with warm chick­pea puree, almonds, cur­rants, pick­led quince and char grilled flat­bread.  Do book as they get real­ly busy.
  • The Grey­town Main Street Deli’s famed pies – a wild boar and a beef and bur­gundy one came along home with us, as did a few deli­cious-look­ing deli good­ies (pure­ly for Christ­mas gifts you under­stand).
  • Everest cix saladThe Grey­town French Bak­er’s almond crois­sant – crispy flakey lay­ers of deli­cious­ness and not over-almond­ed.
  • An asian-style teriya­ki chick­en sal­ad at Ever­est Café in Feath­er­ston – del­i­cate and flavour­ful hon­ey gin­ger chick­en on fresh and crispy cab­bage, radish, sprouts and cher­ry toma­toes.  These guys also bake all their own breads and pas­tries, as well as stock­ing Killinchy Gold ice creams for afters (liquorice and black cur­rant any­one?).  And in waf­fle cones (no self-respect­ing decent ice cream should be seen dead in any­thing less in my book).  And okay, I con­fess.  An orange and white choco­late brioche fell into my bag too.

Boy there’s a lot of deli­cious­ness right on our doorstep when we find our way out of the city.