Family of 12 Tour Part 1

      Harvest has now kicked into full swing and I haven't had any time to fully collect my thoughts, so I apologize in advance for the delay in posts and if this post is a little short. The two week trip that I took around New Zealand was absolutely amazing and I will try to do my best to share it all in this post.
      On the first day of the trip we set off toward Martinborough at 8 am from Craggy Range. It took us a few hours to get there but the the countryside was gorgeous so the time flew by. Once we got into Martinborough we had some time to kill so we stopped and had a nice lunch in downtown.

Te Mata Peak the morning we departed

Terroir the morning we departed

Eduoard Maurisset's morning face

        After lunch we drove over to the Te Muna vineyard and received an amazing tour of the grounds. The Te Muna vineyard is a pretty amazing property where Craggy Range grows mainly Pinot Noir and Sauvignon Blanc, or as they say over here 'savvy.' I will leave the photos to do the talking.

This vineyard was absolutely spectacular, and I cannot wait to see the grapes from it come into the winery. After our tour David, Edouard, and I decided to have some fun with the Craggy Range sign on our way out, and here is what resulted.

David

Me

Me

Me

Me

Eduoard

Eduoard

Eduoard

      That night we checked into the Claremont Motel and then went out to dinner at the Martinborough Hotel. After dinner we opened some Craggy Range wines in our Motel an relaxed for the night.
       The next morning we woke up early and headed to Palliser Estate where we received a tour of the surrounding vineyards and the winery. After the tour we did a barrel tasting, a cellar door tasting, and the sat down for a big lunch with the owner and some of the staff. It all made for a pretty amazing morning. I wish I could share photos of everything from the morning, but my camera  battery was malfunctioning so I only got a few.

Eduoard's morning face

David's morning face

Palliser sign

         After Lunch we headed off to Ata Rangi. Our experience at Ata Rangi was very cool, we were given an outdoor tasting first, where we tasted through a profile of the wines. During this tasting we were given two bottles of Pinot Noir from 2002 vintage, one under screwcap and one under cork. It was pretty amazing to see how different the wines were from each other, the wine under screwcap   was preserved much better and the wine under cork was quite oxidized in comparison. Ata Rangi are firm believers in screwcap and 2002 was the last time they will ever put a cork in their wines.
        After the tasting we toured the property and got to taste Pinot Noir from barrels. The Pinots were spectacular and the whole time I was wishing that I could have taken a sample from the barrels with me to drink that night. Anyways, Ata Rangi was a very amazing winery and I once again wish I had some photos to post but my camera was still not working.