Fine Wine tours
I joined a wine tour to Matakana. There were two other Japanese on the tour. I had met them at Auckland International Airport when I'd visited New Zealand 3 years ago. What were the chances!

We left downtown Auckland at 9:30. We went across Harbor Bridge and headed for Matakana. Matakana is located on the north of Auckland and it is one of the renowned wine growing regions. After 50 minutes drive around the beautiful green hills there were some vineyards dotted around the road.
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We stopped at a small cheese factory on the way to Matakana. There were lots of unique cheeses. I could taste some cheese but I am not a strong cheese fan, especially molded cheese.

Ascension Vineyard
Is surrounded by a green vineyard and it has a nice cafe.
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It was a really good day!

There were many kinds of wines, vinegary wine, sweet wine and wine with fruity flavors, etc. I tasted more than 7 kinds of wines.

There were seven in our party, includeing 3 Japanese. After wine tasting, we had lunch, which was really nice!
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He was a really funny American and he had a clown nose, for some reason. "We have copper noses!"