It was the best of weekends...it was the worst of weekends...

(Actually, that isn't fair. But it was a very contrasting weekend.)

Laaaaaaate on Thursday night (so much so that it was already an hour plus into Friday) my brother arrived from Sydney. Husbink was working nights at the time and so Friday morning was taken up with much needed sleep (and much creeping about on behalf while the men slept on...we really don't have enough rooms for guests!).

Anyhoo, after the brother woke up, we left Husbink sleeping a little longer while we went out in search of a marvellous kiwi brunch. We found it, we were happy. :)

Finally, Husbink was up-and-at-'em (actually I must say, Husbink managed to get up without all the prodding/shouting/bacon wafting that it usually takes to get him out of bed when he's just finished nights. I was extremely grateful and it was one of the things that really helped my weekend get off to a good start) and we could head away to Martinborough for three nights of relaxation, wine tasting, good meals at restaurants, wineries and the place we were staying (courtesy of us - my bro's bbq skills, my salad skills and Husbink's holding-it-all-together skills all came to the fore).

We cycled hither and thither - Saturday afternoon from winery to winery (we fitted in six); Sunday we cycled out of town and along a gravel road called "River End"...we thought we'd try to find the end of the river...it turned out to be a stagnant pool...rather disappointing but the cycle was still fun! Of course, the ride ended at a couple more wineries... This exercise *almost* justified a third of what we consumed over the weekend!

We found some spectacular wines and wineries - for anyone interested in experimenting with new wines, I'd advise some of the following (possible to track down in places in Australia, limited availability in the UK...so really, you should just come here and see for yourself...)

Alana Estate - has to be one of my favourite places in the world. Staff are welcoming, friendly, knowledgable (in a want to share their enthusiasm with you way rather than a hoity toity snooty way). Restaurant is also fantastic and the food and wine matches are done superbly. We are more than a little gutted to have left NZ before their summer concert series really kicks off.

Stonecutter - a new experience from this weekend, Stonecutter give the impression of making wine by accident, but it turns out rather superbly, especially their Syren Pinot Gris and regular Pinot Gris. I suspect rather more thought goes into it than they let on!

Tirohana - all round good stuff. Again, another winery that we had failed to visit on our previous excursions. Friendly staff, good wine and of course, with an ice wine on the books, I'm never going to be sad.

Haythornthwaite Wines - Possibly the most fun of the weekend, run by Susan (who was busy wrapping up wine for Christmas presents) and Mark (who was a lot of fun and very informative), Haythornthwaites produces some fantastic wines with a lot less pretention than they could justify considering the quality of the wine. I had been sent there by Alana on our first visit to Martinborough as Haythornthwaites is one of the few Martinborough wineries to produce a gewurtztraminer however they had always been closed until this time... Sadly, they had no gewurtz left...until I mentioned it for the sixth time, at which point Mark admitted he had three bottles out the back and could we twist his arm a little more? I haven't tasted it yet but I was rather chuffed to have acquired it! The rest of their wines were very pleasant and Mark made us taste their two pinot noirs alongside each other (young vines in the left hand glass, old vines in the right hand glass) which was very interesting.

Vynfields - Their wines don't amaze me, all fine but nothing wow. However, should you ever be in the area, it is a wonderful place to lose an afternoon. And they make very tasty platters to soak up a little of the alcohol. (They also don't seem to have a website of their own.)

Benfield & Delamare - a bizarre little place. The wines were fine, the staff eccentric!

Margrain - you aren't going to go wrong with a Margrain wine. Sadly, it seems they know that and their cellar door staff were worse than lacklustre. While other staff would have persuaded us to part with a lot of cash and lose an afternoon there (beautiful setting, pretty good food), they effectively shooed us away. Buy the wines, don't bother with a visit.

Martinborough Vineyard - probably Husbink's favourite in terms of the wines. Certainly the Te Tera Pinot Noir is something very special. Staff took a bit of thawing but we were quite late by that stage and I think they were getting bored of the tipsy Sunday avo hoards. We even went back on Monday morning to buy more. Definitely a label to look out for.

And finally, Ata Rangi - we didn't visit these guys this time, but their superb value rose still hits all the right spots!

So what could possibly have been the downside of this weekend? Horrific (yes, I'm aware I'm over using this word at the moment!) hayfever. In some respects, not the worst hayfever I've ever had, its persistent, red-eyed (no, I promise it wasn't just from the wine), tight-chested, blocked-nose, itchy-mouthed present put a certain dampener on the weekend. Not least because by this morning I was feeling so sleep deprived and cranky (add the "monthlies" and a bit of a hangover into the mix too) that all I wanted to do was kick my brother onto that plane, Husbink out the door to work and get some sleep. ON. MY. OWN.

I knew I'd regret it if I didn't make the most of absolutely every minute with my brother so tried my hardest to push on through. An apologetic text is still called for though!

I am now home alone and within the next few hours I intend/hope/pray I'll be sleeping like a baby.

(Confession: The picture is actually from our first trip to Martinborough, last January. We took a weekend off taking snaps, my bro doing a good line in finding comedy places to put his tiny-weeny-smaller-than-a-phone camera to take pics of all three of us. Once he's sent them through, I will enlighten you further...perhaps! The reason I felt a need to confess was because the weather wasn't quite so picture-perfect this weekend, but that actually worked quite well for all the cycling and boozing, at least we didn't add heat stroke to the reasons for dehydration!)