After watching the new James Bond film the previous afternoon, we woke up on Friday morning to bright sunshine and clear blue skies, much needed after the previous nights of rain.

We are staying just outside Blenheim, surrounded by vineyards, the heart of New Zealand wine production.

Richard and I are keen drinkers of New Zealand whites, so we decided to go on a wine tasting tour.

At 10am sharp the Marlborough Wine Tours minibus picked us up from our campsite to take us on a day's wine tasting round the vineyards. We were joined by another English couple who were on a cruise, and later by an Australian couple from Byron Bay, and a young English couple from Shrewsbury.

First stop on the tour was Saint Clair. Not a wine maker I was familiar with but I soon got stuck in - swishing the wine round the glass, taking a few big sniffs, swilling it around my mouth, then swallowing to feel the finish. I wasn't going to spit mine out, in fact nobody did!

We then moved on to Cloudy Bay, one of the more well known makes. Neither Richard or I particularly liked any of their wines, most of them being for to acidic for me.

The vineyards in this whole area are relatively new, they have only been going since the 1980's. They are in long wide valley which used to be a river bed. Some of the vineyards place the stones from the riverbed around the vines to retain warmth in the soil.

After Cloudy Bay we swiftly moved on to Nautilus which had a couple of sparkling wines. Nautilus on the whole were cheaper than the other makes but all round good value for money.

Next stop was Mahi, a small company that hand picks its grapes. We weren't that impressed with any of the samples apart from the Pinot Noir.

With all the wineries there appears to be a shift in taste about Chardonnay. Long gone are the overly oaked flavours, they are now putting a lot more emphasis on making them more fruity.

Our most memorable stop of the day was Bladen. A family owned vineyard which was started by a couple from Wellington in 1989, Dave and Christine Macdonald. They called the brand Bladen after their two children Blair and Deni. Dave served us the wine samples, none of which were Chardonnay - they don't make it as they don't like to drink it! We loved all the wines here, they seemed to be a class above the rest. A particular favourite of ours was the Gewurztraminer, Richard describes the flavour as a rose petalled Turkish Delight.

Our last tasting of the day was at Wairau where we also all stopped for lunch. It was in a beautiful setting, rows and rows or vines set against the mountains in the distance. Here they also had a delicious Gewurztraminer and a Pinot Noir. We swilled down a glass of the Gewurztraminer with our lunch. Richard couldn't resist the Green Lipped Mussels again, especially as they come from nearby Havelock.

After our splendid day we got dropped off at our campsite and I fell asleep for what I thought was a few minutes, but which Richard gleefully informed me was in fact a couple of hours!

Katy