Travel to: Waiheke Island

The vineyards at Mudbrick

There is no way to describe how beautiful Waiheke Island is. My camera is stuffed full of photos from the ferry ride, the bus window, the cellar doors .. everywhere!  Even though the weather started to falter by the end of the day, how gorgeous is that view? I don’t think I appreciated how staggering the vistas would be.

I don’t know that I would have known to visit Waiheke without a tip from my favorite Kiwi. And since he certainly knows his wine, I knew that I had to make time for this trip. The ferry ride is only 30-40 minutes from the main marine terminal in Auckland, and so it was an easy walk from the hotel. Because I had booked a proper tour through the concierge, I also got “priority seating” on the ferry – which really only means that I could get on first and snag one of the seats up top. I’m so glad I did!  The sun was pretty bright, but where else can you get this kind of perspective on the city?

Am I right?  Fantastic. It’s just surreal.

I’m not usually a fan of the big-crowd tours, and I didn’t really ask that question when I booked this one. The bus carried 36 of us, which I can’t say that I loved. As a solo traveler, you’d think that having more people on the tour would mean more people for me to talk to, but quite the opposite is true. I find that in bigger groups, people are more likely to keep to themselves, even if they too are traveling alone. I’m sure that’s some kind of psychological phenomenon there…

I didn’t really mind, though. I had two wine-specific objectives when I set out to Waiheke:

1. Find some delicious wine on the island that I’d want to bring home with me;
2.  Spy.

The syping (AKA “research”) is really for the Kiwi. He knows the island well, but I have a fresh perspective and can make some notes on the best and worst bits about wine touring on Waiheke. That’s important stuff, for the future.

Anyway, we visited 3 wineries (Stonyridge, Casita Miro, and Mudbrick) and one olive grower (Rangihoua). I think Casita Miro was my favorite overall experience, partly because of the way they offered the wines with food to bring out the best in each wine’s flavors, but also because it reminded me *so* much of Barcelona.

Mudbrick was definitely the most stunning views of the day. We took a stroll through the vineyards to have a look at the various grapes and how close they are to ripening. On this side of the planet, we’ll be getting into harvest season relatively soon. It’s pretty cool to see the fruit starting to change color, knowing that they’re getting themselves ready to be picked. Yay!

There was a nice balance to the day overall, especially with the stop for an olive oil tasting. (Boy, am I glad I stole some of that gluten-free bread from breakfast!)  I brought home a bundle of tasting bottles so that we could enjoy the gold-winning single-varietal and blended olive oils with friends. Everyone loves fresh pressed olive oil, right?

Baby olives!

Somehow I didn’t actually buy any wine. I liked most of what I drank, but I didn’t love anything. And if I’m going to drag a bottle of wine (or 6) on the plane home with me, it had better be pretty special. Unfortunately we didn’t stop at some of the more famous vineyards, like Man O’ War, but that’s just a reason to go back. Without the 36 other people, though. Next time, we hire a car.

So true.