It was all smiles at our Annual Wine Club Harvest Day!
It was all smiles here at Ash Ridge on March 24th, when we held our annual Wine Club Harvest Day event. We spent the day hanging out with some of our fabulous wine club members; picking Chardonnay, tasting wines, eating delicious food, and listening to John and Leith's MANY stories...
Harvest day, quite frankly, is one of our favourite days of the year--except for when it's the last day of Vintage--as we get to actively engage with our club members and take them behind the scenes to see the beginning of the grape-to-glass process. There's nothing more special than introducing people to what we love to do: crafting delicious wines, especially when we get to showcase a little bit of the mess, chaos, and excitement that goes with it.
We are incredibly stoked with how the day’s attendees did, with them picking 17 rows of our Clone 15 Chardonnay, equating to just over 2.2 tonnes! A fantastic result from everyone's hard work.
The day was not all hard work and no play, as we got to sample some delicious juices, wines, and foods. The morning started off with a customary "pickers smoko" with freshly baked pastries, coffee, and tea. After a few hours of work, we headed down to the winery and sampled the 2024 ferments, tasting a variety of Chardonnay, Viognier, and Rose juices. After a fun but informative breakdown of the revival process from Leith and Thalia, we headed back into the vines for a picture-perfect French country spread. Lemon-roasted chicken, roast vegetable salad, cold roasted beef, fresh focaccia, and Greek salad lined the table, with our dessert barrel's nearby.
The luxurious spread was also accompanied by a special tasting of our unreleased, newly bottled 2023 Premium Chardonnay, 2021 Bordeaux blends, 2022 Estate Syrah, and 2020 Premium Syrah.
Our Harvest Day 2024 event was an absolutely stellar day, and we are so happy to have enjoyed it with a small portion of our wine club members. We especially appreciate those who made the trip up from Canterbury and down from Auckland just to attend! It is always lovely getting to know the Ash Ridge Wine Club family, as it constantly pushes us to ensure we are producing the best wines for you to enjoy.
Our annual harvest day event is a wine club member only event. If you are interested in learning about how to become a wine club member or are interested in attending more wine events such as these, visit our club membership page on our website (/Join-Our-Club) or give us a call. For our current members, and especially those who came out for the day (we hope you had as much fun as we did), keep an eye out for our winter wine event's; a wine blending afternoon in the cellar and a wine dinner! More details will be headed your way soon.