Southwestern Michigan Wineries Part 2

Greetings again everyone,

Part 2 of our trip to Southwestern Michigan Wineries is finally here, sorry for the delay, it has been a crazy couple of weeks. We went to about six wineries, and took a lot of pictures. We had a great time, the pictures from Free Run Vineyards are truly priceless but Nikki won't let me put them online. She was acting goofy, and I caught them, needless to say she is the Chief Creating Officer, and what she says goes.

That is all the writing I have for now, so enjoy, because we sure did!

A view from the vines, it was so much fun walking around the grapes and just being out in the country. So quiet and peaceful, what a great way to spend the day.

One of the great things about small wineries is that you will find so many different arts and crafts that the big commercial wineries don't want to put out.

Almost harvest time! They were inspecting the grapes while we were out shooting, and they said that any day now, they will be ready to pick. I can't remember if these are pinot noir or cabernet grapes, but they are both great wine varietals, so it doesn't matter to me.

Pulling up to the Contessa Vineyard we saw this sign, and I just had to get a picture. Set the tone for this winery. A very cool location with an incredible outside porch. It was three tier porch, with a secondary bar station on the lowest level. We so much want to go back there in the high season, and see this place when it is packed. Definitely on the to do list for 2012.

Time for a little joking around. This is one of the few times that you will se a picture of me. I was trying to take a candid of her, and she turns and shoots one of me. She is sneaky!

Not sure what type of wine they are going to be making with the above juice, but the winery was open to viewing from above, and the aroma was incredible! It was so cool watching them test the wine and prep it for the next stage.

One cool thing about the wine trail were these signs. It was so nice to drive through the country side, and see these signs directing you down the right road. The roads were marked rather well, and this made the getting from one winery to the next very easy.

This last picture came by accident. We didn't want to leave the Domaine Berrian so quickly so we bought a glass of Pinot Noir and relaxed on the back deck. It was such a nice day, and wanted to spend as much time soaking in the day as possible. I had the camera in my lap and was just snapping some pictures, and one of them turned out pretty nicely, so I asked Nikki to pose for it, and this is the finished product.

Over the last two posts, we have put up around 20 pictures or so and there are about 480 more pictures in the trip file. Needless to say we had a great time shooting the area, and cannot wait to go back and take more. Next time up there we need to hit Tabor Hill and Round Barn again, and try and get up to St. Julian new Grand Rapids.

We just did a photo shoot today at a lake nearby, having some fun staging some goblets and trying to get creative and artsy.

That is all for now, and until next time keep that shutter moving,

Joe and Nikki