This weekend was the AECOM Christmas party. It was an almost entire day in the Wairarapa partaking in wine, beer and gin tasting.
James and I decided to stay in a hotel from the Friday night, until the Sunday morning. It gives us less stress. We picked the Royal Hotel Featherston. It’s all done up in a steampunk style, with lots of brass and weird cogged items on the walls. It’s really pretty but felt empty, as the hotel has just been taken over by new owners , sadly the bar and restaurant aren’t open yet, so there’s not much happening other than people in their rooms.
We chose to head over to Greytown for some dinner on Friday evening. We ate at The Swan Hotel, apparently it’s Greytown’s iconic hotel. Every time we go into Greytown, or through, I see the place rammed full of people. I always think that The food was amazing. We both chose an enormous chicken burger, and I couldn’t eat it all.
Saturday began with breakfast across the road at ‘Everest’. It’s a cafe that we’ve stopped into many times over the last few years before or after hikes. They sell excellent cabinet food and their slender menu has everything that you could need for a good fill! Following breakfast we went for a random drive around Lake Wairarapa before heading back to the hotel to get ready for the event.
I wore the same dress that I always wear, it’s my one nice ‘dressy’ dress and I feel lovely and comfy in it as well as sexy.
A bus collected us and we were driven into Martinborough, where we stopped for a picnic lunch before being transported off to our first winery: Colombo. It’s a boutique winery that produces small handcrafted batches of wine for the area. You can’t buy Colombo wines in many of the shops, only at their small selection of stockists. We tried all of their varieties of wines; Pinot Gris, Sauvignon Blanc, Rose, Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, and Syrah. I really enjoyed the Pinot Gris and Sauvignon Blanc, but wasn’t a huge fan of the others.
Next on the list was Margrain, we’ve been here many, many times on wine tours. I really like their white wines Their red wines are a bit heavy and rich for me. I like the tasting though, because you only get a small amount, so even if it’s what’s in front of you isn’t your favourite, it’s okay because there isn’t actually that much there. The site that there winery is located is lovely, very spacious, and on a lovely sunny day it just looks so pretty. Here is an attempt at some arty photos.
Poppies was last on the list. Every time I have visited them before, it has been at their Cellar Door, but this time we went to a different site. it was there rental space I think, the one that you can book out for functions like weddings or parties. Poppies is generally my favourite winery. I don’t like all of their wines but I do like a lot of them! Their late harvest Riesling is my favourite.
The last stop of the day was Moy Hall for Gin tasting and Dinner. The gin was good and the food was lovely. There was a photo booth caravan, which was great fun!
Sunday was supposed to have seen up hiking a route called the Putuna Chasm, but we were a little worse for wear and didn’t make it…which is a shame, but our hearts weren’t in it and we would have just been grumpy. So we will try that one another time.
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