Topic: TN: Kiwi rugby & the undecanted aria (New Zealand, pt. 9, long, img)
Author: Thor Iverson (Boston, MA)
Date: 20030531115102

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Los Angeles

Darth Vader and the pelvis

New Zealand

Waiheke and the malbec fetish Five wines with penguin All in the family Heaven at the Green Dragon Inn High, fast, and stupid The glacial pillow Training day

A stiff upper

I run my fingernail across the stiff white linen. Scrrrraaaape! I can almost smell the starch.

Breakfast at The Manor is a formal affair. The napkins and tablecloths are pressed, the waitstaff are reserved in crisp black and white, and the walls are dark, grainy wood hung with paintings of masters and matrons and the genteel life of a bygone century.

There's French toast covered in bananas and syrup, and it's good, but what entices is the second option: the English breakfast, traditional in every detail. Rich, fragrant, heady coffee in a French press accompanies this decidedly un-light repast; the coffee in New Zealand has been of a consistently high standard, and the ubiquitous self-service French press at breakfast is a major component of that excellence.

Christmas carols

Bellies full, we take a peaceful walk through nearby Hagley Park. It's a beautifully warm, sunny day, the finest we've had since Milford Sound, and it seems that all Christchurch is in bloom. The distant cheers and impacts of playing fields (Hagley Park is littered with them) meld with the gentle buzz of bees and insects orbiting a million aromatic flowers, and the temptation to take off our shoes and run in the grass is nearly overwhelming. Nearly.

The Arts Center Your first bad move was wearing those pants Avon guy Who says size doesn't matter?

A slow, ambling loop brings us back to the Arts Center, which we explore in greater detail after last night's dining adventure. From there it's a gentle stroll along the Avon and across bustling pedestrian malls to Cathedral Square.

The cathedral itself is like a thousand others, though strikingly Old World in this very young country; stone and wood in a spiritual mélange of the permanent and the transitory. As we explore the interior, a group of uniformed and slightly sullen children assemble at the front, practicing their Christmas program music. What a disconcerting thing it is for a couple from the northern hemisphere, to hear Yuletide carols while spring is fragrantly blossoming into summer! We sit and listen to them – in all the world, there are no acoustics to match the heavenly reverberation of a classic cathedral – for a time, bringing the bliss of the green earth and the majesty of paradise's promise together.

Outside, the much-hyped Wizard of New Zealand is nowhere to be found at his usual speaking hour. Instead, there's a ridiculously-dressed Bee-Gee-wannabe playing life-sized chess against a host of challengers. We watch for a while, then wander back to the hotel and commandeer its garden for a quiet, relaxing lunch that is of tremendous interest to the B&B's stretchy gray resident feline, Claude. He sniffs and nibbles at the perimeter of a slab of heady, richly-smoked salmon carried all the way from Paringa, and dips his nose into a Mt. Difficulty 2002 "Dry" Riesling (Central Otago) that has gained weight and palate impact over the last 24 hours. Theresa scribbles in her journal, while I spend a few highly-displacing minutes online; nothing takes one out of the immersion of a far-away place like answering email. Clouds start to move in and the day turns cooler, and though we spend the rest of the day touristing and wandering, the magic of the morning is impossible to recapture.

Esk and you shan't receive

Saggio di Vino isn't even a block from our B&B, and has been recommended by just about everyone, so it's sort of a no-brainer for dinner. There's some confusion over our reservation, but we've heard this song before, and we settle into a slightly cramped corner table with a nice view of tree-lined Bealey Avenue. While quieter than Annie's Wine Bar, there's a zesty sort of liveliness in the air that almost has its own sound; it's the vivid hum of an Italian restaurant in full swing (though not everything here is particularly Italian). In the back room, a short Germanic man rises from his seat at a long, crowded table. We hear him saying something to the woman at his right, and then – without warning, and it is a little startling – he bursts into full operatic voice. He's good, rather obviously a retired professional. Everyone stops to listen, appreciative, except for the couple at the table right next to the singer; they seem irritated and deafened.

The menu is somewhat haphazard and hard to decipher, and it's not clear how one is supposed to construct a meal. But we manage, and I turn my attention to the rather impressive wine list, one with a breadth and depth of New Zealand wines we haven't seen since Saffron in Arrowtown. It's a good thing that the wine list is so impressive, too, because at this point everything starts to head precipitously downhill.

A plate of taglioni with wild Canterbury white truffles is impossible to pass up, but the truffles are bland and papery, and only a healthy dose of butter really saves the dish from overt tastelessness. The rack of lamb that follows is very good, with a potato and leek gratin en croute that's slightly unusual and quite interesting, though far too heavy on the nutmeg. Theresa is much less enthused by her food, however – a crayfish risotto that's more like a crunchy rice soup nearly leads her to ask for something else. And she might have done so, had she not already experienced the owner of the establishment:

A stocky, glowering woman arrives with our starches. She stands, hips pressing against the table (and, in one case, my hand). Her head leans over until she's practically between us. In an outrageously thick Central/Eastern European accent: "pasta." She scowls some more. I raise my hand, but she's already repeating: "pasta!".

"Me."

"Risotto!" Barked. Well, gosh, who do you think it's for? There's only two people at the table. Theresa responds. She drops the plate on the table, not exactly in front of Theresa, stomps away…

I’ll have some of that

…and returns with our bottle of wine. Which she raps sharply on the table, no doubt disturbing all the sediment (it's ten years old). An aggressive corkscrewing motion slops a few teaspoons of wine on the table, as does an equally sloppy series of pours.

"Could we have this decanted," I ask as she's dribbling wine down the side of my glass.

Her frown darkens. "No decant!" she snaps, finally leaving. Thankfully, her attitude can't damage the wine:

Esk Valley 1992 Merlot/Malbec/Cabernet Franc "Reserve" (Hawke's Bay) – A bottle with real complexity and interest; this is the sort of wine I came to New Zealand to learn about. Beefy black cherry and cassis, with a leathery/stony structure resting on a foundation of black dirt; occasionally there's a brief drift towards stemminess, but otherwise this is pretty ripe. The acid, however, is just a touch on the high side; I love it, but most critics and lovers of goopier reds would pucker and scrunch in horror. Well, their loss. There's further potential here as well, though the acid is only going to get stronger. Very impressive, and Esk Valley goes on the list of wineries to visit next time; Hawke's Bay, sadly, is not on our current itinerary.

Worrying that we'll have to deal with the owner again, we eschew solid desserts for the liquid version:

Bigass penguins

Konrad & Conrad 2002 "Late Harvest" Riesling "Sigrun" (Marlborough) – Metallic lime sorbet, a bit watery, and with a grace note of botrytis. Pleasant, but boring.

Palliser Estate 2002 "Noble" Chardonnay (Martinborough) – I always think botrytized chardonnay should be better than it is, that the creamy citrus of late-harvested chardonnay and the creamy texture of noble rot should lead to something spectacular. Unfortunately, what usually results is a disjointed bundle of lemony acid and slightly musty apricot. Not here, however. Candied orange and peach macerating in a strikingly sweet apple syrup, long and spicy with great balancing acidity. A benchmark for the style, or so I think at the time. 36 hours later, I'll have a new benchmark.

And Saggio di Vino? Very recommendable for the wine, and the food is OK (though pricey by New Zealand standards), but watch out for the service.

Kiwis on ice

The next morning is cloudy, and after another fortifying English breakfast – this time served by a painfully attractive young Slavic girl that has a pair of workmen abandoning their tools to stare – we retrieve our second rental car of the trip and drive out of the city. We're largely mapless outside the city center, but manage to navigate our way to the spectacular International Antarctic Center near the airport. Describing it, one would draw mostly disinterested stares at the lack of "things to do," and one has to appreciate science to enjoy it, but this multimedia exploration of the beauties and hardships of life on the southernmost continent is truly incredible. Christchurch is one of the major stopping-off points for scientists and travelers headed to Antarctica, and the resources this provides to the interested traveler are extensive. The easily-bored will probably enjoy a ride on the Hägglund, a two-section, amenity-free, all-terrain vehicle driven (in our case) by a scientist freshly-returned from Antarctica; the ride goes over impossible bumps and, for a time, underwater.

Why you wallaby like that? Showoff! "Hello, Dali" Stuart joins us in New Zealand

From there, we spend a relaxing few hours at the Willowbank Wildlife Reserve, where we finally get to see the elusive national symbol, the kiwi. From pictures, we'd been misled into thinking that these were tiny, delicate little creatures. Hardly. Bigger than a soccer ball in some cases, these roundly-plump, flightless birds with aggressive-looking needle beaks may be endangered, but they hardly look delicate. If they could play rugby – the other national obsession – one assumes they would.

Back in Christchurch, we take advantage of the opportunity to relax a bit before dinner.

The thin and the gobby

Someday, Le Bon Bolli will have a lovely view of the New Arts Center's sleek modern lines. What it has now, despite a commanding upper-floor view of its surroundings, is a view of a construction site and lots of fencing. Nonetheless, this is one of the most formal settings we'll encounter in New Zealand, and we've gotten a bit dressed up for the occasion.

The menu looks intriguing, but we've both ordered the "chef's table," a free-form dégustation that doesn't end until the diner says it ends. Course after course of masterfully-blended local and foreign ingredients, cooked in a simple quasi-French style, arrive until our bellies are bloated and we can just barely raise our hands for respite. The service is flawless and very European. There's a young American couple at the next table, and they somewhat covetously (and not at all surreptitiously) eye us all night.

"Are you restaurant critics," the man finally works up the nerve to ask, near the end of the meal. No, we just like to eat.

"But you're so thin!" exclaims his partner. Don't we wish.

I'm determined to stick to local wines, but the list doesn't make it easy; it's a little short on bottles from the Waipara or elsewhere in Canterbury, though it does have some intriguing international selections. Given the quantity of food, we choose a couple glasses of white followed by a bottle of red, and end up with only one local wine.

Leaning Rock 2001 Gewürztraminer (Central Otago) – Light, sweet peach and lychee syrup. Good, though somewhat indifferent.

Black Ridge 2001 Gewürztraminer (Central Otago) – Much better. Intense raw cashew and lychee, braced by fine acidity and a striking finish.

Black Estate 2001 Pinot Noir (Waipara) – An unwelcome intrusion of the international style. Thick, chunky, and loaded with vanilla and dense black fruit. Woody and plodding. Blech.

Needing a little something to settle all the calories, I choose a glass of the Fontafredda Nebbiolo d'Alba Grappa from a very international list of digestifs. Floral, earthy, and absolutely loaded with roses, finishing soft and complex with sweet pecan and more flowers.

With all this excess, we've once again managed to close down a restaurant, though the downstairs bistro is still hopping with activity. We've got an early day tomorrow. A day of extreme vinous excess, of men and their boxers, and of whale ribs.

We can't wait.

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