Day 341: Staying Local Near Edenhouse — Wineries in Upper Moutere
Breakfast at this place is the ultimate imposter experience because not only is it ultra luxury, it’s a private home — so you really do feel like a multi-billionaire sitting down to posh family breakfast in the drawing room with a crew of three house servants waiting on you and preparing whatever you want to eat. No one else around. Preposterous!! And awesome.
We enjoyed a relaxed school morning. Willa and I sat in the back garden, James and Teddy stayed in the cottage. Beeps joined me and Willer for a while so she could share all of her journal entries since he last saw her in the Middle East. She also read him her uncompleted 13-chapter novel.
“There seem to be a lot of puppies and desserts and robots in your story,” he remarked.
Beeps practiced casting his fly rod out in the open lawns of the Edenhouse garden. Willa gave it a whirl as did James.
Around 1 we headed out for lunch at a nearby winery’s restaurant, Forster’s, just outside the miniscule town of Upper Moutere.
It was a chill and delicious outing — got a platter and it was plenty.
Next stop: Himmelsfeld Vineyard.
Himmelsfeld is a boutique vineyard run by one woman, and really only available to locals. We’ve been drinking it at dinner here and liking it, so we went for a tasting. Beth is a no-nonsense 60-something year old farmer who loves animals and enjoys growing wine. We had a nice chat with her.
The funniest story was that she decided not to “lamb” her ewes this season because the area’s been threatened by drought. That means she never let her rams out of their enclosure. Yet 60 lambs were born on her farm in the last month. Somehow the deed was done that many times….through the fence? We were cracking up.
She doesn’t kill her sheep and she doesn’t have sheepdogs, so the animals were way more trusting and chill than any other sheep we’ve met this year. Didn’t dart away when you came close.
She’s a vegetarian.
We bought some of her 2009 sauvignon blanc and had it sent home.
By this point, James’s allergies were going haywire. Poor guy!!
The rest of the afternoon was spent drawing and reading. Willa decided to draw this dog she found in a book about NZ vineyard dogs. Not bad!
Dinner was delightful and perfect in every way — except one. Our darling children, who are basically saints at restaurants by this point in the year, seemed to hit some kind of wall. A combo of too-stuffy a place with too many manners required plus two weeks of late bedtimes. They were restless and Willa was sassy.
Then. The worst moment.
Peter the posh owner was making his way around the table serving oysters. After he expressed surprise that the kids were eating oysters, I mentioned that they’ve really branched out a lot this year. I smugly began listing other adventurous foods they’d tasted.
“Oh Peter, you know, these two, they’ve eaten fried crickets, grilled silkworms, fermented camel’s milk–” Just then James interjected mimicking my same sing-songy voice and loudly added: “butt poop.”
Somewhere faraway a record scratched and the room went totally silent. Peter continued to pass out oysters.
BUTT POOP?!?!?! Really, dude?
I was somewhere between wanting to die and wanting to die laughing.
Ugh. He got five minutes for that one.
Finally got them to bed after another delicious meal and some Hobbit.
MISC:
James and Willa both say “a bit” and “quite” a lot. I’d already noticed it (and noted it here, I think), but my dad keeps remarking on it/chuckling at it. It’s really funny because it so doesn’t come from me or Teddy. A mix of Harry Potter and meeting so many Aussies and Kiwis lately?
