Napier- The Hawke's Bay

After travling down the western side of New Zealand's North Island to Wellington I headed back up the Eastern coast to the town of Napier and the Hawke's Bay.
The Hawke's Bay region is also known as the fruit bowl of New Zealand. Hawke’s Bay is mainly know for its beautiful scenery, a Mediterranean climate, award-winning wines, local fresh produce, a thriving arts community, unique wildlife, stunning architecture, and rich cultural heritage.

The sea-side town of Napier is renowned for its 1930s Art Deco architecture, over 2,200 hours of sunshine a year. After arriving I spent a few hours relaxing on the beach before booking a trip through the famous wine country on the Grape Escape wine tours.

Our group visited 4 vinyards/wineries from all around the Hawke's Bay and Napier region. This tour gave us a chance to see famous large manufacturers and also well known smaller producers. This was my first ever wine tour and not being much of a wine aficionado anyways I found it to be amazingly informative and of course very fun.

Our first stop was a the Mission Estate Winery. http://www.missionestate.co.nz/.
Established in 1851, Mission Estate is New Zealand's oldest winemaker. Over 150 years of experience and passion have culminated in the current collection of Mission Estate, Vineyard Selection, Reserve and Jewelstone award winning wines. Grapes are sourced predominantly from Hawke's Bay, with modern viticulture and winemaking techniques practiced to ensure the long-standing reputation for quality is maintained.

Next we visited the cellar room at the Church Road Winery. http://www.churchroad.co.nz/ Church Road is a boutique winery that applies hands-on winemaking techniques to the very best of the Hawke's Bay harvest. The winery, one of the oldest and the largest in Hawke's Bay, was founded in 1897, and then totally renovated in 1989. In the years since then, their wines have earned a glowing reputation, becoming one of the most sought-after names in New Zealand restaurants.

Next we visited the much smaller but very well known Clearview Estate Winery. http://www.clearviewestate.co.nz/

The winery, although a much smaller producer is world famous for their Chardonnay and Bordeaux red wines. This was my favorite winery that we visited on our tour. We had a generous tasting of their wine selections accompanied along with a wonderful cheese and meat board. We were then taken out on a tour of the vinyard and manufacturing facilities by the owner and wine maker. A truly unique and amazing opportunity for our group to receive. Thanks Tim!

The last winery we visited on out tour was the Craggy Range -Giants Winery. http://www.craggyrange.com/
Craggy Range is famous for producing some of the best red wine produced anywhere in the world, while the white wine, particularly its prestigious chardonnays, are also hard to beat. The Giants Winery specialises in the production of the company’s two Prestige Collection red wines, “The Quarry” and “Sophia”, and the Giants Vineyard Chardonnay. The winery boasts a circular red wine fermentation cellar where twelve, traditional 8,000 litre French oak fermentation cuves are used for fermenting the best parcels of Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc and Malbec grown on our Gimblett Gravels Vineyard.

I had a such great trip to the Hawke's Bay and Napier region it is really a beautiful part of the country. The people that I met and places I toured around to were so great, I look forward to returning sometime soon.

Cheers!

James