Today we spent the morning around the condo. Walked. Drank coffee. Worked a little bit. Then we headed upcountry for a winery tour. Upcountry is what it sounds like…up in the country. Its the central area of Maui, 2,000 to 4,000 feet up the slope of the Haleakala crater. It’s cooler up there, no palm trees, more mountainous and grazing field terrain – and well – just totally different than the palm treed beaches as sea level.
We’d been up in the area before – when we went to the crater to hike. But we’d not been out to the winery or the ranch store there, so we figured we’d take the excursion. It’s about an hour drive, so we left with plenty of time to spare for the 1:30 winery tour.
The drive is spectacular – up from the beaches and sea level, we climb on the 2 lane highway that becomes narrower and and narrower as we traverse the mountain side. Little towns and neighborhoods surround us as we gaze out over the South Maui coastline. It’s gorgeous up here.
We stop at a little Japanese park, Sun Yat-sen, to take a few pictures and watch the ubiquitous roosters. Wouldn't be Hawaii without those darn roosters!
We carry on up the road, winding through incredibly gorgeous farmland, with stone fences lining the road and vine covered foliage everywhere. Its so green up here, like a tropical rain forest but without the trees.
We arrive at Maui Winery early (big surprise, we’re early), so we have time to do the tasting first. We try the different whites – all made with pineapple - and a couple reds and roses which are pretty decent. But we like the Maui Blanc enough that we decide to buy a bottle after the tour.
The 30 minute tour is quite interesting. According to legend, the King liked to come up here to visit and drink champagne, so they built him a cottage to stay in while he was here. At some point in time, some tribesmen were trying to outlaw the Hula dance, but the King really enjoyed the dancing. So the owners of the ranch planted large pine trees, Tuscan Pine trees, in a semi-circle in front of the the King’s cottage’s porch. This formed a pseudo stage for the dancers who came to perform for the king.
The trees grew very tall and were quite susceptible to the winds, so they had to be taken down for safety sake. Instead of simply cutting the trees down, the ranch hired an artist to carve statues out of the pine, and what remains is beautiful artwork surrounding the grass by the cottage.
The tour takes us through the gardens, then up to the winery, which is all open air and quite quaint. We get a lesson on the processes and also on how much pineapple is purchased and processed for the wine – let’s just say it’s a lot! We finish the tour, buy our wine, take pictures of the mascot man standing guard by the tasting room door…
…then head across the street to the Ulupalakua Ranch store. This store is your basic country cowboy souvenir shop with lots of interesting tchotchkes of the western ilk. But the best thing about this place is that they have their farm raised beef and lamb for sale. Yum! We end up buying a pound of ground beef (really well priced – cheaper than our favorite farm in Asheville, FYI!) and a pound of lamb chops. Barbeque here we come.
We stash our purchases in the car and head back down the side of the mountain, stopping along the way for some great photo shots of the Southern and Western side of the island.
Simply stunning.
Our next stop is the Surfing Goat Dairy – which is located way down on the lower side of the mountain. It’s a huge complex, way bigger than we had anticipated with a long winding tree lined drive and goats galore. Tons and tons and tons of goats. Awesome!
We didn’t necessarily want to take the tour (it’s $16 each – nah – we don’t need to pay to pet goats) but we do want to sample the cheese. The only way to do that though, is to buy samples. So, in for a penny, in for a pound, we buy our expensive cheese sampling (and a shirt for Ed!) and tuck into some fantastic (if not overly pricey) goat cheese. We get 3 samples of soft chevre and 3 samples of hard aged goat cheese, all in varying degrees of excellence.
They are really, really good – but even the smallest amount of soft chevre is out of our price range, so we content ourselves with the samples and move on.
Next stop is Costco for gas – but the lines are ridiculous. Understandable, since the prices here are .40 cents less than the other gas stations. Yes. 40 cents! It’s worth it to be a member. But we’ll come back another time when the lines aren’t 40 cars long.
So, back to Kihei we go, with a stop at the Maui Brewing Company for happy hour. We love this place – it’s just typical brewery – reminds us of Asheville – but with roosters instead of dogs. Yeah, they are here too!
We spent an enjoyable happy hour here – Ed drinking his Coconut Hiwa and me drinking the chocolate stout. Yum!
Then back to the condo for the sunset and dinner on the lanai.
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