Day Three

Napier and Hastings are the epicenter of the Hawkes Bay wine region. Additionally, Napier unabashedly claims to be the Art Deco Center of the World, although somewhat tongue-in-cheek. The downtown area is replete with art deco buildings.



We set off to have breakfast and as we were enjoying our eggs and toast, who should walk by?Yep, Karen and Ed Levine from Beech Mountain. Now in fairness, we had seen them in Auckland on Sunday, as they were preparing to leave on a cruise to Australia. But it was funny that we saw them walking down the street in Napier.

As I said before, Napier is at the center of wine production in the Hawkes Bay Region. I guess this might only be second to the Marlborough Region of the South Island. Marlborough is famous for Sauvignon Blanc, which put the New Zealand wine industry on the map. Here in Hawkes Bay, they focus more on Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Chardonnay, and Voignier. When you enter this region, you are greeted by miles and miles of vineyards. Very reminiscent of pictures I have seen of the Sonoma Valley.

We were going to do a self-guided winery tour, but the folks at the hotel talked us out of it. Were they ever right. We went with Vince, who has been doing tours for nearly 30 years. What a blast! We did four wineries, sampled a minimum of eight wines per winery, and had a great cheese platter at the last winery. First we would have never found these wineries on our own, and secondly, should not have been driving if we could. There were six other folks with us, and we had a great time.


Above are our wine tour friends, from left our guide, Vince, Hal, Barbara and Inge(?) from Sweden, David and Vanessa newly-wed Kiwis, Becky, and lastly 2 young ladies from England.
Tomorrow it's golf and then off to Gisborne.