Waiheke Island Wine Tour

You can’t  travel to a place known for wine without hitting a few wineries, so we took a ferry from Auckland out to Waiheke Island for a tour with Waiheke Island Wine Tours.

We were lucky enough to get the owner, Wayne, as our driver.  His family has been associated with Waiheke Island since the 1840’s, so he knows the area better than pretty much anybody.  I paid strict attention to his driving, since we are renting a car in two days, and I wanted to visualize driving on the wrong side of the road.  Yikes!  I visualized us dying at least twice!

Wayne took us to 3 wineries, all very different from each other.  The first one was Kennedy Point, which happens to be located at, you guessed it, Kennedy Point.  That’s Wayne on the right.

It’s a beautiful spot on a little peninsula with a pretty bay on each side.  The wines were pretty good, but their Syrah was just ok, which was a bit dissapointing since they unabashedly talked about winning “Best Syrah in the World” in 2009 at the International Wine Challenge in London.  I guess I’ve been spoiled by Paso Robles Syrah (Nicora in particular).  Either that or the Brits have no idea what Syrah is supposed to taste like.  They do drink beer at room temperature after all!

The tasting room is surrounded by 400-500 year old Pohutukawa (say that 3 times fast) trees.  I’m particularly enamored with the 2nd photo, where I was able to get a slice of my finger in the shot….and this is just the first winery of the day!

These trees are also referred to as New Zealand Christmas Trees, since they blossom around Christmas time with bright red bottle brush flowers.  Stock photo below.

We were then off to Casita Miro Vineyard.  We liked nearly all of their wines, but again, nothing was OMG, MUST BUY!  However, the owners visited Barcelona way back when, and loved Antoni Gaudi’s Park Guell so much that they want to replicate it here.

Love it!  I also liked their wine presentation, along with the little bites of food to accompany each wine.  The foccacia bread was so good!  The owners wife makes it herself.

Casita Miro also runs a restaurant, and we came back for lunch after the final winery.  Most of the dishes were good to excellent, with the exception of the paella, which was overcooked and needed some spice.  Amazing to us that the best paella we have ever had was actually in Arles, France, with honorable mention to a food booth at a market in Cadiz, Spain, that only cost 2 euros.

The final winery was Obsidian, where we had the first wine that actually wowed me (a Pinot Gris).  They also had a very nice Rose, but we didn’t buy anything as we are travelling light, and there are more wineries to visit.  Very nice tasting area though, with winery dogs running around…always a good sign!

You get an excellent view of the Auckland skyline on your return trip.

We finished off the night with dinner at Harborside Ocean Bar and Grill, which is housed in the historic Ferry Terminal building.  The food is a little on the pricey side, but it was very good.  The view of the harbor from their patio cannot be beat!

Time for bed…..we are off on another ferry ride first thing tomorrow.