Today Orkney had a visit from the largest-ever liner to grace its shores, and apparently the fifth largest passenger ship in the world, the MSC Meraviglia. It carried 4950 passengers, and 1500 crew. So we invited them all over. Well, it's New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc month - everyone's favourite wine - and we thought the offer of a glass of Sileni Estate's Marlborough Sauv Blanc might tempt them all to come down the close to K&G.

Well, they didn't ALL come: we got several hundred cruisers through our door rather than the potential 6450. This is is bad and good. Bad because it means we didn't break the Guinness World Record for the Largest Wine Tasting Event. That crown remains with Fernando Ortiz Torres who organised a tasting for 5095 people in Aranda de Duero in September 2006. Good because, if everyone had come, we would have been giving away in the region of 300 bottles of wine!

Sileni Estates kindly contributed three bottles towards our tasting today - I think if we'd asked for 300 bottles they might have drawn the line!

The Sauvignon Blanc was greatly enjoyed by everyone who tasted it today - most of whom were German (the Meraviglia had passengers from all over the world, but Germans were most numerous.) This lovely couple from Frankfurt were full of praise, hailing it as, 'Nearly as good as an average German wine.' I think they were joking.

These friendly folk, on the other hand, had sailed around New Zealand on their last cruise, and so were well-acquainted with the wonders of its wines.

And this jolly gent, Peter von Eday, got it right almost immediately when we asked him if he could identify New Zealand on our Sileni map.

All in all, a memorable day, even if it didn't make us record breakers...

Cruising in a sea of Kiwi Sauvignon Blanc