I loved every little bit of Mission Estate Winery. From the $5 wine tastings, to the exceptional food, to the lavish surroundings. It was bliss and I can honestly say I would fly to Hawkes Bay just to come here again (sorry kids, next time we are coming without you).
I’m a big fan of Gone With the Wind and if I had to put myself anywhere in that movie it would be as Scarlett, lounging on the front porch of Tara. Mission Estate Winery put me the closest I’ve ever been to living that dream as I stared out from the 166 year old estate (the oldest vineyard in New Zealand). Now I was probably double the size of Scarlett, dressed in a Glassons dress and had 3 kids milling around me but I wasn’t going to let that disturb the daydream right now!
We arrived right on lunch time and set about ordering. Mission Estate have the best kids menu I have ever seen. As a parent I am so over paying $10 for chicken nuggets and chips everywhere we go. Even the kids are over chicken nuggets and chips! So to see our eldest, who ordered the steak and mashed potato, get delivered a piece of superbly cooked eye fillet (for just $13) was just awesome!
If the kids menu is the best I’ve seen, the adults menu is equally on par. Our meals were amazing! I had the steak and it was absolutely divine.
Once we ordered we thought it only fair to go and do a little wine tasting before our meal to figure out what we would have with the meal. The kids meals were delivered early and they sat there like miniature royalty while James and I went to the bar to sample the finest that Mission Estate have to offer (feel free to judge our poor parenting at this point but the kids had a ball!)
Wine tasting at Mission Estate is awesome! For just $5 we sampled 7 wines and got a Mission Estate wine glass to take home. The wines were too good to do any spitting out so James and I made our way through them all (it’s a hard life…) before falling in love with the $40 Chardonnay and buying one bottle to take home. The only problem now is finding an occasion worthy of such a bottle – maybe the wedding?
The service was superb. Our waitress told us that she used to visit here with her partner on Anniversaries and how much she loves seeing others discover the specialness of the place – how often do you find people working in a restaurant who genuinely love the place that much!
Mission Estate Winery is definitely a new favourite of mine and a must visit, either with our without the kids. You can find out more about them here.