Mission Estate Winery — Attraction in Napier

My wife and I went to a "Great Gatsby's 100th Birthday Party" event last Saturday night, organised be the Mission Estate Winery. The price was high ($250 each), the expectations were high, but the execution was very poor! It felt like a lot of corners were cut. We were greeted by a glass of bubbles, which was nice. We were given a voucher each to get a free gin and tonic, which I tried to redeem at a bar. After waiting for a bar girl for five minutes, I was told that I had to go to a different bar located outside instead. As for food, a so called "Grazing Menu Dinner" consisted of four types of canapes delivered by teenage boys and girls, who didn't really know what they were doing (as expected) and nobody from the senior staff seemed to be giving them any guidance. We had to ask for canapes, because everyone was walking past us as if we were invisible. There were also two food stations - a Seafood Chowder station and an Eye Fillet + Roasted Potatoes station that EVERYBODY had to queue up for!!! No salads or anything else to go with it either! Instead, it should've been a big table inside the hall with far more options of food to choose from. There was supposed to be a cake at the end, but my wife and I left way before that as we couldn't even imagine queuing up for that as well! Oh and there was also a so called "circus performance", a kind of performance that you would expect to see at a strip club and not at a high end establishment like the Mission Estate! We heard other guests complaining about it as well. Two stripper look alike ladies were wrapping themselves around the hoola hoop one after the other doing exactly the same act!!! I have to agree, it was a circus indeed! All in all, it was NOT worth $250 a ticket, queuing up for a piece of eye fillet and some roast potatoes. The least you could offer is more food options to choose from. For this sort of money, you can have a nice three course dinner for two at the very same establishment on an ordinary night, including a nice bottle of Mission wine. Whoever the organiser of this event was, owes an apology to all the guests attending this cheap looking, but rather...

Art Deco Gatsby's 100th Birthday Party, a huge disappointment, on arrival we were greeted with stilt walkers, dance girls and the red carpet, wonderful. Unfortunately we had to ask for a table to seat four ladies, told we can sit anywhere, one seat left at five separate tables, as a group we naturally wanted to sit together, reluctantly they set a table up… Now paying $250 for a ticket we didn’t expect to eat from cardboard bowls and use a wooden fork.. main meal we had baked potatoes and beef which we had to tear apart and eat with our fingers because they didn’t provide knives. So basically it was finger food except for the main.. dessert, well let’s just say wasn’t great either. Another gripe, we were charged an eye watering $64.00 for a bottle of wine, our local supermarket sells the same for $24.00, we expect to pay a bit more at a restaurant but another $40, a bit over the top we thought… The venue is outstanding, us four girls have been to Mission estate three times for Art Deco. The last two years have been exceptionally good, beautiful meals served on China with real cutlery, so we thought celebrating Gatsby’s 100th Mission Estate you would go the extra mile to make the party special, well I’m sorry, you didn’t deliver. We have to give you credit to the waiting staff, they were brilliant, top marks to them…All in all it wasn’t the great experience we...

We got to see The Mission cellar door while we were visiting friends who had just moved to Napier, as part of a wine tour with Frankly Tours (see other review). We did the tour on a Sunday, hoping that the cellar doors would be open, and we were not disappointed. The Mission was our first stop, and what a starter! Fantastic venue and atmosphere, just stunning on the hill. 5 wines tasted from their extensive range, starting with their bubbles. We were given plenty of time to browse the historic photos and artifacts after the wine tasting session. Tour guide was the most knowledgeable of the 3 by far that we met on the day tour, and I think we chatted so much with Q&A that we kind of ran out of time. Absolutely no pressure to buy any of the wines, and indeed we were back on our tour bus before we realised we had not had the chance to purchase LOL. Beyond the wine production the venue and location itself is obviously a major part of their business set up, simple stunning. Recommend you ask for this "cellar door" specifically on any wine...