Apricots: a new experience and a taste of summer

For me summer is not only long, warm days but the fresh stone fruit; peaches, apricots, nectarines, cherries and berries of all sorts.  One of the joys of going to Marlborough during early January is that apricots and nectarines are beginning to ripen and often one of the few orchards left will throw open their gates and have pick-your-own fruit. 

So it was that the apricots were ready when Bev and I arrived in Picton in early January.   

An apricot about to be devoured

There is an orchard with relatively old trees a few kilometres north of Blenheim.  We took my mother and on a very hot afternoon we went picking.  The trees were loaded with fruit, and it was tree ripened. I was picking some to take back to Wellington and also helping my 87 year old mother to get apricots which she was going to preserve. 

Bev had never been apricot picking before so it was a magical experience for her.  She quickly learnt to select firm fruit to keep for later (and for which to pay) while frequently finding a ripe apricot which just begged to be eaten (we probably should have been weighed when we took our buckets for weighing and paying).  I, too, was doing much the same.  In no time we had several buckets full of fruit.  The smile in the picture gives some idea of the joy which one woman was experiencing that very warm summery afternoon. 

Near the orchard (about 10 kms away) is a winery that only opens its shop during summer and only during the week.  As it was Friday it seemed to be an opportune time to visit Clos Henri to get a bottle of one of his superb wines.  He is a vigneron from Sancerre in France who makes some the best wines in that area and has brought that influence to the terroir of Marlborough and makes some of the most distinctive sauvignon blancs of the region.  It is a beautiful setting and the shop is in a deconsecrated church.  I splashed out and bought a pinot noir and a sancerre before we went back to Picton for a welcome glass of cool sauvignon blanc.  

Clos Henri