Monday, September 13, 2010

Wine trip to Western Australia - AUG 2010

The mean reason for coming all the way down to Margaret River, about 4 hours drive south of Perth. Wine Directions is an importer & distributor of fermoy Estate in Singapore.

The entrance with the main buildings, the buildings on the left are the 'cellars' used for storage, the little yellow building is the cellardoor and behind there the winery. most of the vineyards are around this complex


Cabernet Sauvignon planting behind the winery, these vines are over 25 years old, pretty old for a 'new' wine region as Margaret River. you can tell it is winter as there are no leaves on the vines.


During the walk in the winery, we did tast some barrel samples, this was barrel fermented Semillon, their specility.


Liz Dawson, the wine maker at Fermoy Estate


temperature controlled barrel storage, at this stage the wine is maturing
The winery from a different angle, with the fermentation tanks at the right


Some old Merlot vines!


other vineyards at the Fermoy Estate, beautiful skies with plenty of winter rain

Next stop, Forrest Hill Vineyard in Denmark, WA. located amongst beautiful rolling hills and close to the ocean, very serious wines!

Another shot at the Forrest Hill Winery, behind the hills in the back is the ocean.
I was invited to attend the final blending before bottling at a small organic winery near Mt. Barker in WA. This was great experience as it is a rare occassion that outsiders are invited.

Liz, the trade representative who took me around the region but is winemaker by trade. See the chalk remarks on the table for the different percentage of the blends. It turned out that the final result was a 90% Sangiovese and 10% Merlot.

Tasting some bottled wine from another winery in the Albany region.

While in Albany decided to go whale watching, a longlife wish! This was a bonus on top of a great wine trip! The whale on the picture is a Southern Right Whale calf, coming to the catamaran out curiosity, you just the head and 'shoulders' on this picture.

The same whale but this time spouting from the blow hole before diving under again.

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