April 9, 2013
We felt a little trepidation as we waited to be picked up for our wine tour. So far wine tasting in New Zealand had been a lot of fun, but today we’d be visiting higher-end wineries, and I hoped we wouldn’t feel intimidated by glossy surroundings or feel pressured to buy. As it turned out, I needn’t have worried: all of the places we visited were friendly and laid back, and the tour was a lot of fun.
Our first stop was one of the most esteemed wineries on the island: Mudbrick Vineyard. It’s also one of the most beautiful, the kind of place that makes you start envisioning wedding receptions (if you’re female and/or prone to that sort of thing). The nice thing was in spite of having the most beautiful building and some of the most expensive wines on the island, Mudbrick managed to have a laid-back charm in the tasting room and tasting there was a lot of fun.
Mudbrick Vineyard
Our next stop was Kennedy Point Vineyard, a small, beautiful winery amid pohutukawa and olive trees. It has a casual, country feeling, and aside from wine they make excellent olive oil and the best honey we have ever tasted: Manuka Pohutukawa honey. The wine was wonderful and the price was right: we bought three bottles. This was definitely our favorite winery of the day!
Kennedy Point
Our third stop was Goldie Vineyard, once privately owned but now run by the University of Auckland. This winery also had a homey country barn feeling, a nice presentation, and some excellent wines. We bought a bottle or two (my memory of the tour starts to get hazy around this point).
Goldie Vineyard
And last but not least was our lunch stop at Stoneyridge Vineyard. A day of wine tasting had turned a group of strangers into new best friends, and our tour group decided to sit together for lunch. We had tasting platters that were filled with fish, cheeses and other goodies and included 3 samples of wine to taste. I remember the beautiful ivy-covered building, the view of the hilly vineyards from the covered deck, a delicious lunch with good company, a fabulous dessert, and buying a taste of Stoneyridge’s top-end wine, Larose. I’m sure it was good, but my memory gets pretty foggy around this point. One tip for wine tasting: bring your camera as your pictures may have to fill in for your memory of the last part of the tour.
Stoneyridge Vineyard
In all, it was a great day. We enjoyed all the wineries we went to and looked forward to coming back one day and sampling more. And it was nice over the coming weeks to open our purchases and find that even in an inebriated state we made good choices. –Cyndi
