We were picked up by the lovely Coleen, who with her husband Dave runs Highlight Wine Tours. Rather than having a set itinerary, they find out what sort of wines and vineyards you are interested in, and shape the tour around that. Seems like a fantastic idea to us.

And so, with stops to pick up another two young couples, we were off. Our first stop was Hunter's vineyard, one of the first to be set up, in 1979. Sadly Ern, the original owner, died shortly afterwards, so ever since it's been his wife Jane who has run the show in his memory, picking up all manner of 'women in wine' awards in the process. We sampled a wide variety of their wines, including their Kaho Roa 2007 (an oak aged Sauvignon Blanc) and The Chase 2008 (a blend of Pinot Noir and Merlot) and whilst all of them were good, none really stood out for us.

Hunter's had definitely whet our whistle and so we were ready for the next stop – Spy Valley wines. Spy Valley is so-called because it is located next to a satellite comms monitoring system (otherwise known as a spy base). Someone has really thought through the branding here (apparently all done in-house) and there are a lot of nice little touches – Morse code runs around the neck of the bottle, and the premium range is called Envoy. We were served our wines by a lady who was a former banker from the City – what a change from that to this! Here we particularly liked both the Sauvignon Blanc 2009 and the Riesling, and ended up buying a bottle of the former.

Our third stop was Gibson Bridge, the smallest of the vineyards in Marlborough, and definitely the funkiest cellar door we've ever seen. Black walls, chandeliers and red moulded plastic chairs – we loved it! Run by a husband and wife team (the slightly eccentric but lovely wife was our server) the vineyard had a really boutique feel – being so small they are able to try new things and see how it goes, including a delicious Pinot Noir this year. Generally they are famous for their Pinot Gris wines, all of which we sampled, and all of which were delicious.

New Zealand cellar doors are incredibly generous in terms of the numbers of wines they let you taste. At this point we'd drunk a minimum 7 wines at each stop, and so were starting to feel nicely merry, just in time for our trip to Cloudy Bay. I was very excited about this, and I can report that the view from the window is in fact of the cloudy bay pictured on the bottle. As you'd expect, the cellar door was a very slick affair, and the tasting room looked like someone's (very premium) weekend cottage living room. We r eally liked the 2007 Te Koko here, another gently oaked sauvignon blanc.

Wine tasting complete for the day, we then headed to a microbrewery called Moa just around the corner. Apparently more and more boutique breweries are springing up in this area, so it was interesting to see one. I don't remember much of the beer, other than the fact I found myself trying to 'beer taste' as you would normally wine taste. Idiot. The cider was good though.

Having not managed to make it to Villa Maria on our wine tour (the vineyard is a little out of the way), I was adamant that we had to make a pilgrimage to it the following morning, before we caught our ferry. James pointed out that we would have to start drinking at 10am as a result, but I was not to be put off. And so at about 9.45 the next morning we pulled up at Villa Maria's cellar door. Fortunately they were already open (just) and so we didn't have the ignominy of having to knock on the door to be let in, although we were the first customers of the day.

Villa Maria offer tastings of wines that they don't sell internationally, and so we were excited to try them all, especially Viognier 2008. We were served by a lovely and knowledgeable girl who told us all about the history of the company – founded by a 21 year old called George Fistonich in 1961, who has gone on to build the brand to become the most awarded wine in the country. As James was driving, he had to pick and choose what he actually tried, but again, I boldly sampled the whole range (purely for research purposes you understand). Very much enjoyed seeing where our favourite sauvignon blanc is produced, and we left clutcing a bottle of Viognier, two very happy campers.

Still with a little time to kill before our ferry, I suggested we pop in next door to Wither Hills, which we've tried a couple of times at home. Our server was a large Kiwi man called Peter who told us he was a Chardy boy, through and through.” Classic. Although even I had to agree, as a confirmed non-Chardy girl, that their offering was pretty good.

And that is how I came to find myself, drunk for the second time in 12 hours, shortly after 10.30 in the morning.