Margaret River Wineries: Voyager Estate Tour

After our wine tasting in Michael’s Room  at Voyager Estate with the lovely Claire we then embarked on a 1 hour Winery Estate Tour with 8 other people.

The tour began out the front of the bright white Cape Dutch styled cellar door where we learnt about the history of the estate and the reason behind the South African touches. We roamed the beautiful gardens which made me feel a bit like Alice in Wonderland at the Queen’s croquet grounds!

We stood under one of the largest and tallest flagpoles in Australia and then hopped over to the vineyard where Claire started to explain to us about viticulture. It was the perfect time of year to be doing the tour as we were able to taste the grapes since they were not far off being harvested to make the 2014 vintage.

One thing I found really interesting is why they put soft material around the bottoms of the vines (like in the picture below). It is actually to ward off certain types of pests! Just like netting is to stop pests, particularly birds eating the grapes.

Voyager Estate has HUGE grounds so in order to see as much as possible on the tour we all jumped aboard and open-air bright orange jeep type bus. As Claire joked, it’s their South African Safari vehicle! It actually made me feel like I was jumping aboard the Magic School Bus and soon would be shirking down to journey through the tanks and into a bottle.

We were taken to see the impressive ‘power house’ generators of Michael Wright (the founder of the Estate who has sadly passed away and the estate is now in the hands of his daughters), different patches of vines, the winery where all the action takes place and the largest underground barrel room cellar in Australia.

Like in the Michael’s Room tasting, Claire just had so much passion and knowledge about the vineyard that I literally think she could of talked all day! Having worked in the industry and now blogging about it, I still find aspects of the wine industry a bit full on like the viticulture side of things however Claire put everything in layman’s terms and it really made you excited about going back to taste the wines!

The tour is about 1 hour long and depending on the time of year you go you’ll be able to see different aspects of the year long winemaking process. The tour runs on Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday at 11am and 10 people max can go, so book ahead!

The Estate Tour and a tasting at the end are $35 or you can team the tour up with lunch, click here to view the Voyager Estate Tour & lunch options.

You’ll become part of the Voyage family after doing the Estate Tour, you get to see behind the scene’s and discover how that amazing glass of Voyager Estate wine came to be. For more information please check out the Voyager Estate website and keep tuned for my upcoming blog post on the Discovery Menu degustation lunch at Voyager Estate!

If you’re planning a trip to the Margaret River Wine Region, make sure to check out the accommodation, wine tour & attraction ideas on margaretriver.com, email [email protected] or call (08) 9780 5911