Tour cont.

        After Lawson Dry Hills, we went to the store to get some food for the evening, and then headed back to the Nautilus cottage for the afternoon/evening. This evening was cool because last years Doug Wisor recipient, Ben Riccardi, and another guy he was going to be working harvest with came over to hang out with us. We made some great food and opened some nice wine for the evening. 
        The next day we slept in and then headed for a winery close by called Forrest for a quick tasting. They had some interesting wines, but nothing that really sparked my interest enough to buy.
        After the tasting we headed to Motueka to our next accommodation at the Nautilus Lodge. Here's a few more photos, and a couple I can't quite explain.

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Tour cont.

              After Villa Maria, we headed on down the road to Lawson Dry Hills. the people at Lawson were extremely welcoming and friendly, and we actually didn't even take a tour, they sat us down immediately to taste some wine. This tasting was quite cool because we tasted through several Chardonnays, Sauvignon Blancs, Gewurztraminers, Rieslings, Pinot Gris, and Pinot Noirs. And with each wine we tasted the winemaker went into depth on his thoughts behind each wine and why each wine was the way it was. It was interesting to see him get excited talking about his style of Sauvignon Blanc because most of the other producers didn't really want to talk about 'Savvy' very much. But he seemed to like the more green style savvy and it definitely reflected in the wine. The most notable wine we tasted was 'The Pioneer Gewurtztraminer,' it just had a very balanced style with lovely notes of lychee and muscat. I was actually planning on purchasing a bottle but the winemaker insisted on giving each of us a free one. Near the end of the tasting they pulled out a bottle of Gewurztraminer Brandy from the 1995 vintage. Apparently this was a very bad year for Gewurztraminer so after fermentation they decided to just distill the wine and make Brandy. Now the resulting Brandy then somehow had so much flavor that they didn't need to put any additives in, and then they bottled it for sale. They poured us a small taste, and it was surprisingly quite delicious and full of flavor, enough so that we were all convinced to buy a bottle of the Brandy. 
         Once the tasting was over and the cellar door was closed, the winemaker pulled out some beer from the back and offered for us to stay a little longer and have a beer with him. This was very cool, and were not expecting it at all. So we had a nice beer, a chat, and bought some wine, then we had to say goodbye. This was an amazing tasting and I can't thank the folks at Lawson enough for treating us so well. Here's a few photos:

Tour cont.

After Nautilus, we headed to Villa Maria. Now Villa Maria was quite the change from the other wineries we had sen so far, because it was much bigger. The facility there was a massive tank farm as you will see from the pictures. We were given a very nice tour around the facility and a barrel tasting. I noticed during the barrel tasting that they were still using some very old barrels, much older than most wineries keep. This is typically because after 2-3 years the barrels will no longer impart very much if any oak flavors/aromas. I asked about this, and the woman who gave us the tour told us they did this mainly for extra storage space, and to make the most of each barrel. After the barrel tasting we walked outside to the back of the winery and we were shown the Sauvignon Blanc tanks, and we all leaned our heads back and went 'woah,' because the tanks were so massive. When the tour was finished we tasted some more wine in the cellar door and went on our way, it was a very nice tour and I am very grateful to be given the opportunity. Here are some photos: