We got an early start at 12:30am when the guys upstairs turned on their music again, and then cranked it way up. We called the front office to complain, and we also heard other residents knocking on the floor, doors and walls. About 15 minutes later all was quiet again – we learned in the morning that the hotel actually took their speakers away. We wished they had taken the Jacuzzi away also, as our walls continued to hum for another hour.

We managed to get back to sleep and even slept in a bit, we had a late breakfast and were ready for our Hawkes Bay Wine Tour at 12:30pm. Hawkes Bay is one of the two major wine regions of New Zealand, and home to dozens of wineries. The tour we booked took us and seven other people to four of them. The first stop was at Esk Valley Estate – it appears relatively humble compared to later stops, but they made of a few of our favorites of the day. Sarah enjoyed the Verdelho white, and I fell in love with the peppery Syrah. They don’t have US distributors, so we bought a bottle of each to take home.

The second stop was Mission Estate Winery – one of the oldest and largest of NZ wine makers. Thier beautiful building was constructed in the early 1900’s, and sawed into thirds and towed up the mountain in the 1920’s to get out of the flood zone it was originally built in. Their restaurant comes highly recommended, both for food and view/location. If we’re ever in the area again we definitely would book a table there. Their whites were a bit too ‘creamy’ for my tastes, but I enjoyed their Merlot a lot. One of our tour mates, from England, had the best line about it: “Quaffable. The evaporation rate won’t be very great.” (Meaning he’d drink it fast.)

Craggy Range Winery was a highlight. Built at the foot of Craggy Range, it’s a very modern looking winery with a spectacular view of the mountains. We loved their wines (especially the Savignon, Syrah and the blended “Sophia”), which are available through Kobrand in the US. Hopefully we’ll be able to find some when we return home.

Before out last winery stop on the tour we took a detour to Te Mata peak at the top of Craggy Range. It’s about a 15 minute drive up the mountain to a spectacular lookout point with a view directly down to the winery. There are a myriad of bike trails and hang gliding launch points up there also.

Our final stop was Vidal Winery. It was between lunch and dinner hours, and they had preparred a delicious spread of food for us in the restaurant to enjoy while we tasted their wines. This is another place I would love to eat at sometime – the tasters we had were terrific, and almost outshined the wines.

Once we arrived back at the hotel, we grabbed a pizza to go from downstairs and crashed in our room. For the first time on the trip we turned on the TV, only to realize why we hadn’t bothered before.