At the end of summer we leave our wives in charge of the children in the Bay of Plenty and hot-foot it across the country to taste the grapes, picking them at the perfect time. Although our winery (the place where we chuck the grapes in a bucket and stand on them) is in Rotorua, we grow them on the oldest vines in the country in the best wine growing regions – Marlborough, Central Otago, Martinborough and Hawkes Bay to get the best possible result. It’s a frantic but intensely enjoyable couple of months, culminating in a 30 hour ramble in a cotton wool wrapped truck from Central Otago deep in the South Island, hauling tonnes of warm, ripe fruit back up to Rotorua.We have always loved wine. We met at a big wine making company and wanted to do it ourselves. And that’s what we did in 2009. Our wives weren’t too thrilled with the idea of uprooting our families all the way down to the South Island so we have set up camp at the gondola in Rotorua. Our winery is at the base of the gondola where you can come in and see how the lorry load of fruit turns into a bottle of our finest, of which we are immensely proud.Take the trip to the top of the gondola to our tasting room with arguably the best view in Rotorua.