WineNZ Summer 18-19 (1)
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cellar door | feature<br />
Monsoon Valley winery has a pleasant terrace overlooking the vineyard.<br />
Warm wine<br />
Elephants, bananas and grapes live happily<br />
together at Monsoon Valley, writes Paul<br />
Taggart.<br />
There is a winery in New Zealand<br />
with an elephant — Hawke’s<br />
Bay’s Elephant Hill. It is an<br />
impressive beast, which was<br />
shipped all the way from<br />
Myanmar. However, the<br />
elephant in question is made of wood.<br />
To find a winery with real-life elephants,<br />
you have to travel a bit further afield.<br />
At Monsoon Valley winery, near Hua Hin<br />
in Thailand, there are two elephants, which<br />
earn their keep by doing some work among<br />
the vines, but mainly by giving tourists rides<br />
around the vineyard.<br />
While riding elephants, patting tigers and<br />
holding snakes seem to be going out of fashion<br />
with many Western tourists, as it is seen as<br />
animal abuse, the Monsoon Valley elephants<br />
seemed reasonably chilled to me. One was<br />
working — taking a mother and her son on a<br />
trip round the vines with a mahout up front,<br />
while his friend had a day off, which meant he<br />
got to eat lots of bananas fed to him by excited<br />
children and equally excited adults.<br />
Intriguingly, the vineyard is on the site of a<br />
former elephant corral where wild elephants<br />
were domesticated back in the day.<br />
About 110 hectares are now under vines at<br />
the site. The earliest varieties planted included<br />
colombard, chenin blanc, sangiovese, rondo,<br />
and syrah. Other varieties have been planted<br />
since, including sauvignon blanc, although<br />
there was none available for tasting, or buying,<br />
the day I visited.<br />
Lunches were adequate.<br />
www.winenzmagazine.co.nz<br />
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