Mike was a wealth of information. As we drove towards the first winery he showed us some of Napier’s wonderful art deco architecture. We learned, and saw first hand, of how land was raised up from the ocean and swamp and Hawke’s Bay was changed forever by the 1931 earthquake.

Before lunch, we visited Park Estate Winery and Church Road Winery. Park Estate was not what I expected. This is the largest fruit wine producer in New Zealand and it has only fairly recently moved into grape wine production. We tried some kiwifruit wine, which I quite enjoyed, then sampled a range of grape wines. Church Road was as expected. This is part of the Montana Group and the winery produces a good selection using a range of grapes from Hawke’s Bay and elsewhere. After our tasting, we lunched at the fine restaurant.

After lunch, we first visited Mission Estate Winery. This is New Zealand’s oldest winery. The tasting room and restaurant are housed in an outstanding English Victorian-style building built in 1880, which was once a Catholic mission, moved to its present site in 1910. For a change of pace, mike then called into Penny Madden’s Pottery. Penny makes a lovely range of quality product and she is also a delightful lady. She turned out to be Mike’s wife.

The tour visited two further wineries and we rated these the two best. Moana Park is a relatively new brand but the owner first planted his vines here in 1979. This is a low-key, friendly operation and we enjoyed all the wines, which we tasted while enjoying a cheese platter, which Mike produced from the ‘back-of–the–bus’. Brookfields was an appropriate place to finish. This is a leading producer of New Zealand premium wines and owner/wine maker Peter Robertson was both entertaining and knowledgeable as he explained his wine philosophy and some practical tips to our group.

It was a good day. We enjoyed the tour, the wines, the food and the company. We had learned about different wine styles, how wine is made, and which food and wines do justice to each other.