Hawke’s Bay Wine Tour

Hi guys!

I left off my recaps from New Zealand with my food and scenic highlights from Nelson

I am back in the states and so far I am HATING the cold weather and a little thrown off by the time difference butttt I love being reunited with my best friends!

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After leaving Nelson we went to Napier, New Zealand for 3 nights

the best part of our trip in Napier was the breakfast at the hotel every morning

Kidding..kind of. This was the first hotel where we were given a full spread of hot and cold breakfast options! weee! I loved the mushrooms served with breakfast and they also had a really delicious granola I had with some yogurt and rhubarb compote..YUM

Napier is close to Hawke’s Bay, which is another top wine producing region in New Zealand. So we ventured to the wine center in Napier after breakfast for a preview tour and tasting before visiting vineyards in Hawke’s Bay

First we went into small “flavor” rooms where you could smell a bunch of different flavors and aromas that could be detected in wine

All you had to do was pick the metal stick up and smell the end of it to see if it smelled like the card description it was matched with. Some of the scents were really strange and gross..like one of them was smoke..yuck!!

Then we were taken into the theater room where we watched a DVD and went on a virtual tasting tour of Hawke’s Bay. Each wine we sampled matched a different vineyard in Hawke’s Bay

Smiling for the wine tasting!

After the tasting we were ready to venture to our first vineyard! We made our way to Mission Wineries where we got to do a tasting and then have an amazing lunch

we were told they hold LOTS of weddings at Mission. So now I’m getting married in New Zealand. I mean could you even imagine?! bahhh!

Nikki and I

For lunch we got to choose from 3 main courses and 3 desserts. I chose the fish option and berry trifle dessert with homemade custard.

We were all so excited for lunch!!

my fish course was AMAZING

It was a pan seared grouper fish served over a warm panzanella salad that had caper berries, kalamata olives, sun dried tomatoes and was served with a green dressing. AMAZING I TELL YOU.

Dessert was equally as delicious. I loved the homemade custard!

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Our next winery of the day was Church Road

We were given a tour of the property and then got to do a small tasting. Look how big the wine barrels are!! Talk about a lot of wine in one location!

 

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Our last vineyard of the day we just did a wine tasting. I forgot to snap any pictures because it was pretty late in the day at that point.

I have one more recap of my trip to complete

I’ll be back later in the day to share my meals and work outs for the week!

have a great day everyone!

<3Chelcie

Tagged as: bake, dessert, lunch, new zealand, study abroad, travel