Post No. 77 - Virtual Winery Tour

Okay people, I am a total let-down. Yes, I did remember to take the camera on Saturday but alas, at no point did I whip it out of my bag to get any photos for you. Terrible Kate!

So instead I am going to find you some suitable links so you can take the virtual wine tour!

We strolled on down to The Square on Saturday morning to meet up with everyone and catch the coach. I think there were about 20 of us in the end, Graeme's colleagues plus some partners/friends. The weather was pretty yuck on Saturday morning and it rained all the way down to Masterton where we had lunch, a vineyard tour and our first tastings at Solstone Estate Winery. Lunch wasn't up to much but the tour was interesting and here we bought our first bottle of wine - an Autumn Riesling (delish!).

After lunch we headed back on the coach and travelled further on to Martinborough which is a huge wine making region in New Zealand. There are literally roads where every property on it is a vineyard!

So we headed out to 4 other vineyards:
Tirohana Estate (no wine here - were not keen)
Te Kairanga Wines (we got a Sauvignon Blanc and a Pinot Noir here, our only red!)
Margrain Vineyard (no wine here as was starting to wonder about carrying it home! I did like a Chenin Blanc here but neither of us were sure if we could polish off the bottle)
and last but not least,
Voss Estate Vineyard (where we got another Sauvignon Blanc - the best we tried all day, and a dessert Riesling - only 375ml bottle for same price as normal size bottles but the stuff is like nectar - yum!)

So there you have it! 5 bottles of wine later! The coach ride was fun, lots of laughter and fortunately no-one was sick! We were so tired when we got home though and ended up in bed at 9.30pm!

Haven't drunk any of the new stuff yet - we will probably try and save for Christmas time. It was an enjoyable day and definetly something we would consider doing again (especially when our cellar gets low on stock!)

There were some people that did have cameras with them and they never stopped taking pictures (!) so we will see about getting some pictures from them for you.

Hope you have enjoyed your virtual winery tour, unfortunately no tastings but if you come out to visit we will take you on a 'real' tour!