By the time we finished the temperature had climbed to the late 20s but as humidity was really low it was quite manageable and almost manageable if one was in the shade.
I had never been to Matawhero Wines, which was one of the earlier boutique wineries, and T wanted visit it so off we went. They made their name when Denis Irwin, the owner, made a Gewürztraminer that won a number of gold medals in the late 1970s and early 1980s. It was a long lived and particularly lovely wine.
The winery was in a lovely setting with tables out on the front lawn mostly in the shade. It was far too hot to sit in the sun. We sat on the veranda and had a flight of 5 wines including the iconic Gewürztraminer, a more recent version of course. The wines were well made with the best probably being the said Gewürztraminer and coming in second, in my view, a single vineyard Chardonnay. I The winery was only open for three and a half hours and our late arrival meant it was a quick departure as the hostess booted us out claiming both that the license required her to stop serving at 3:30 and to have everyone gone ten minutes later. She also said she had been working really hard that day. It sounded a very strange license requirement.
Matawhero winery
We then headed back into town to a Mediterranean food shop called Vetro, which T said was very good. I was able to find stuff that was difficult if not impossible to procure in Wellington. The retail assistant was from Argentina and so we talked about the political situation and then moved onto the the food and wine of both countries. She commented about how the Argentina had the potential to be very wealthy but that wealth had been squandered or only gone to a few elites. I commented that we had been to Mendoza and how we had a love affair with the wine. For her the wines were the better than New Zealand. She liked the big and bold flavours whereas she found New Zealand wines to be rather insipid. I agree with her description of the Argentinian wines but I think that NZ wines are by and large extremely good on the quality/value for money spectrum. Argentinian ones are as well particularly as their peso is almost worthless.
T had decided that we should go to the movies. The movie was Pulp Fiction. The venue was The Dome which turned out to be a former gentleman’s club one of many that were dotted around the country. It was all faded glory. Some of the furniture dated from sixty to seventy years ago and were long past their best. It was all dark panelling and dim light so much that I could imagine the landed gentry in smoke filled rooms, fulminating against the government, the council or anything else that irritated them. It was likely that no women permitted back before about 1980. Now apart from a few places in the main centres these places have died along with their patrons. Many of my generation couldn’t think of anything worse that belonging to such a club.
The movie was held in a room with beautiful stained-glass domes adorning the ceiling. I walked in to see that we were being seated in bean bags in a semi reclining position arranged by the staff. We were the oldest there by two generations. We were literally eased into the correct sitting or reclining position and there were even beanbags for the feet. It was very cute. There was an intermission when the pizza and chips arrived for each of the guests.
I remember seeing Pulp Fiction back in the 1990s but apart from the violence I couldn’t remember much else. Seeing it again thirty years later it wasn’t all that violent and the story was engaging as were the protagonists. The dialogue was brilliant. It was wonderful entertainment and a triumph of film making, in my opinion, and it still feels very fresh.
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