Day 6: Napier Wine Tour day

And then it rained. Yup. The heavens opened and before long there were roads flooding and fields flooding and it was very wet. The only thing to do in this situation is to find yourself a knowledgable local prepared to drive you around all day and drink wine. This was kind of lucky as Napier is rather well known for the stuff.

But first we did the Aquarium in town which is great (and every other tourist in town seemed to have had the same idea). It's NZD13 entry fee and the divers do a feed at 10am which was good to watch.

Then we lined our stomach with lunch at Church Road vineyard (a great recommendation from the campsite).

Vince is your man when it comes to wine round here. He knows his stuff and seems to know everyone. It also helped that he got to know your tastes as you went along and he catered the tour accordingly. There were, I think, 6 of us this day and at NZD45 a head it was worth it.

So where did we go:
1. Alpha Domus-stand out wine was the Nobel Semillon and the unoaked Chardonnay
2. KW (Kevern Walker-used to be Huthlee)-stand out wine was the 1999 Huthlee Cab Franc (which you can see me drinking somewhere else in this blog in Picton)
3. Ngatarawa (stables run by Coburn family for generations)-beautiful minty 2004 Syrah-absolutely perfect with lamb
4. Trinity Hill on the Gimblett gravels didn't dissapoint with the 2002 Merlot
and 5. Matariki's 2001 Quintology was great but the girl in the tasting room there was rather anxious about getting home as there really were roads closing around the place it was raining that hard.

Had an uninspiring dinner in Charlies on Emmerson St. Nothing wrong with the food but very few people meant no atmosphere and it needed people that place.

Campsite now becoming very, very wet. Very glad we weren't in a tent.