Highly Recommended, Two Thumbs Up

Wow, what a great little overnight trip! We got up really early (5:10 am!), and got to the Clipper for check in with plenty of time. The Victoria Cipper was a really nice way to ride over to Victoria, and we wound up sleeping for a good part of the trip. When we arrived in Canada, it was a quick trip through customs and then out to the parking lot to meet our tour. Turns out that there were only 4 of us signed up to do the tour that day, so they brought the "small" limo:



The other couple on the tour was Annie and Storm. Annie is originally from Virginia, Storm from South Africa. They both work on a private 175 foot luxury yacht. The Battered Bull, based in Ft. Lauderdale, but they travel literally all over the world...France, Monaco, New Zealand, Tahiti, everywhere you can think of. They were such a great couple and we had a blast traveling around the wineries with them. Check out the link for the boat....man what a way to travel.

Our first stop was at a cidery called Merridale Cider House. Our guide was Roz, and she showed us around the estate, how they pressed the apples, and then we had a tasting of their hard ciders and apple wines. They were all delicious, and we bought the Cidre Normandie, a very dry white apple wine, and the Winter Apple, a fantastic dessert port that was wonderfully sweet and buttery, along with a bunch of smaller bottles of various hard ciders which we drank in the limo throughout the rest of the tour. Who could imagine that they could make apples into such yummy drinks! Here's Jay and I posing in front of some of the apple trees:



We piled back in the limo for short ride to the Oceanfront Grand Resort, where we had a lovely three course lunch that included a wine pairing with each course. It was a beautiful day, and we sat overlooking the water while we enjoyed our food and wine. We were a little late getting back to our limo because we spent so much time talking over lunch that eating took a little longer than usual I guess. Once in the limo, Storm opened the bottle of Normandie white that he and Annie had purchased at the Cider House, and shared it with Jay and I while we traveled to our next destination, Cherry Point Vineyards. This was a lovely vineyard with some truly wonderful wines. Here's our tasting host Thomas:



We tasted several whites and reds at this vineyard, all medal winners for them. We purchased a blackberry port, a really sweet dessert wine, and their Ortega, a slightly sweet white that we both really enjoyed.

Next stop was the Godfrey-Bronwell Vineyards. This is a relatively new vineyard, and the most "laid back" of all the places we visited. Bill, the owner, was our host for the tasting. Here he is with Annie and Storm:



We purchased the Colette here, a white that was a mixture of Bacchaus, Chardonney, and Pinot Gris. Not as dry as some of the others, it's a crisp light white.

Our last stop of the tour was Silverside Farms, where they make sweet wines made entirely from berries, no grapes. Bill and Jean Aten are the owners here and Jean was our host for our tasting. We loved this place, not only because of the delicious wines and the lovely location, but because Jean provided a great big bowl of dark chocolate buttons to enjoy with our wine tasting. We purchased a bottle of the blueberry wine, and Annie loved it so much that she bought 4 bottles! It was a nice place to end the tour, as everything was kind of like dessert.

When we got back to Victoria around 6, we made plans to have dinner with Annie and Storm at a restaurant right on the harbor. There was a yacht race the next day, so there were lots and lots of boats to look at while we drank mojitos and ate dinner.



After dinner we walked around the harbor for a little while, hugged Annie and Storm goodbye, and went back to the hotel. We were in bed by 10, tired from the tour, the food and the alcohol, but we had a fantastic day with great weather, great wine, and great people to hang out with. We were back home by 2:30 the next afternoon, so a short but absolutely wonderful little holiday.