Lovely Friendly Winery…read more Lovely friendly knowledgeable staff, great atmosphere with lovely wines. Happy to open any of the wines and no charge! Encouraged us to try some different wines and we were very glad we did!

We went here while visiting some of the wineries in the area. We were based out of Blenheim, and…read morethis winery was about as far from there as you could get, but I wanted to come to this one because I remember seeing one of their wines at the store and thought they had a cool name for their business. We went there and sampled some of their wines. I got to try 5 different ones; they charge for this but not much. As we talked to them, we learned how they got their name. There is some secret defense facility that I guess supports spying somewhere nearby. They had fun with it though and used it to set their business apart. Their wines had messages in morse code on their labels, and they had a huge poster from a James Bond movie on the wall. The setting was nice. It's not on the main road, so it was very quiet and peaceful. In the end, we bought a bottle of the merlot/malbec, which was very good and is only available there. You can buy a case, which they will ship for free, but for them a case is 12 bottles. Too bad - if it had been 6, we would have done it. Bottom line, this place was great. If James Bond drank wine, this it what he'd drink. I couldn't have asked for more. I would definitely go here again.

Our second (of six) wineries we visited. Spy Valley was on our list as it had a fun spy theme going…read moreon. We dropped in around 2:00pm and the place was packed because of a huge bus tour. Luckily, they were packing up for the next spot. There's an outdoor backyard area with picnic tables to sit and do tastings at. Service was okay but not very informative. Our server didn't tell us much about the wines. At least the wine tastings are complimentary here. We ended up trying four. - Sauvignon blanc - nice balance, a little sweeter than the norm. - Pinot gris - a typical gris. - Gewurtztraminer - the bottles are cool as each one has a different morse code on it. This one translated to "spice". Decent but nowhere near as good as the one we had back at Wither Hills. - Syrah - this one had black peppery tones. Spy Glass was pretty average in our books. Not really worth the detour.

Based on race Reddit recommendations, my husband and I visited Bladen winery during a recent trip…read moreto the Marlborough region. We wisely arrived in time to attend a tour and were able to hear the history of the winery, learn about tending to the grapes, and got to taste some delicious wines along the way. The tour was given by a one of the family, making a visit to this family run winery even more special. My husband and I loved the Riesling! Bladen thought us that not all Rieslings are overly sweet.