Country seven in our Lockdown Tour is New Zealand.
We've enjoyed visiting NZ in real life and hope to return, but a virtual trip is much quicker and less stressful since NZ is 24 hours flying from London. I've done it in one burst, arriving at about 1am, disorientated, badly jet-lagged, and determined to never do it in one go again. Spending a few days in Singapore one suffers from jet-lag and then get jet-lag again when arriving in NZ. Breaking the journey in Sydney seems best as from there it's less than 5 hours to NZ and there's no second jet-lag.
But there's no jet-lag at all in traveling virtually. As it was Sunday we started with a glass of fizz.
N.V. Cloudy Bay Pelorus Brut (New Zealand, Marlborough)
Cloudy Bay is probably the most famous name in NZ wine, and their traditional method sparkling wine is terrific. Predominantly Chardonnay with some Pinot Noir it's aged on lees for two years before disgorgement.
There's said to be more sheep than people in New Zealand, so we chose New Zealand lamb for our representative dish, roasted with parsnip and potatoes and steamed cabbage, carrots and broad beans. In NZ we'd have had roasted Kumara (a variety of sweet potato) but since that wasn't available we had parsnip.
And to accompany, we had a red Bordeaux blend from NZs oldest winery, Te Mata.
2018 Te Mata Estate (New Zealand, Hawke's Bay)
The 2018 is a blend of 47% Cabernet Sauvignon, 37% Merlot, 16% Cabernet Franc, aged in a new and seasoned French oak barrels for 11 months. Delicious wine.
Country 6 was Ukraine
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