A reimagined cellar door experience

For the past few years, we’ve operated as a seasonal cellar door wine bar to fit around the rhythms of our working winery. We’ve been open weekends during the summer months with a schedule of off-season pop-ups throughout the year.

At the end of last season, we asked you how you thought we were doing and what you wanted from us next.

It confirmed two things – that people are kind and encouraging and want us to do well, and that now’s the time to make some changes to how we operate our cellar door experience.

We haven’t made these decisions on a whim. We’ve taken a hard look at our business, sought advice, and trialled several ideas. You may have also heard that there’s big upheaval in the wine industry requiring brave decisions from little wineries like us.

So what’s changing? We’ve summarised the key bits below, but the main theme is reimagining the Alexia cellar door seasonal wine bar experience to better fit our unique location, our community, and the kind of wine experiences people want to turn up for. Rest assured, our (crazy/slightly chaotic) off-season events will keep popping up to brighten up the winter, but our summers will look a little different.

So what’s changing?

FRIDAY NIGHT POP-UP DINNERS ARE BACK

After a great test run of Friday night dinners last season, we’ve got an exciting series planned for 26/27, and we’re keeping things fresh with a revolving carousel of amazing guest chefs.

It’s going to be a moving feast of styles and ingredients, but at its heart are Friday night meals to get excited about, cooked by people passionate about food. The menu is shared in advance, with a couple of options, with dessert for those who like something sweet. It’s a very simple approach - choice is limited, flavour is not. We think you will enjoy it.

We’re taking the slightly novel approach of asking people to ‘book a plate’, not a table. Our beer hall trestle tables don’t translate to segregated dining, so seating is communal and unallocated. You never know who you are going to meet, but lots of great conversations and friendships have started on a shared Alexia trestle table.

Details of our Friday Night pop-up kitchens can be found here: https://www.alexia.co.nz/friday.

SATURDAYS: NEW MENU, NEW EXPERIMENTS!

Saturday remains our core cellar door day, but we’re doing it a bit differently, starting with a NEW Mediterranean-inspired small-plates menu!

It’s quite a change from our previous menu. It’s small and focused, and a bit more elevated. There’s a mix of familiar wine bar classics (yes… pommes frites) as well as some lighter, fresh flavours. Most of all, it’s delicious, and everything goes with wine.

Have a sneak peek at our New Menu here.

On the subject of menus, did you know our wine menu offers 11 wines by the glass? One of the best decisions we made when we opened our wine bar was not to offer formal “talk at you” tastings. Instead, we created the Alexia Experiment – a self-selected, self-guided tasting paddle of science lab-type flasks.

It’s been a winner from day one - partly because it takes the pressure off everyone (no awkward wine chat), and also because of the reaction we see when delivering tasting paddles to tables – they always bring a smile, and somehow manage to make the anxiety of wine tasting disappear.

With that in mind, we’ve expanded our range of Alexia Experiments for our Saturdays, which we think will be a great addition to our wine list.

SUNDAYS, REIMAGINED

Sundays, we will be closed, but don’t worry – instead, we’ll be running a regular series of monthly Sunday events built around community. There’ll be live music, a fundraiser, books, and a couple of other surprises.

Sundays at Alexia will be an opportunity to catch up with friends, or simply spend a relaxing afternoon with a glass or two of wine, some delicious small plates to eat and something interesting to do.

We’ll be delving deep into the past to find some gems from our back catalogue of wines for some special Sunday-only pours too.

We’re excited for this little evolution, and we can’t wait to welcome you all again soon.

Our first day of the new wine bar season is Saturday 7 November. We look forward to welcoming you back then.

Thanks for your ongoing support of Alexia!