Squishy fun at Volcanic Hills winery

Rotorua's Janine Kavanagh checks out the new vintage at the Volcanic Hills Winery open day. Photo / Stephen Parker

Volcanic Hills winery, based at the bottom of Skyline Rotorua, held its second open day at the weekend, hosting about 120 people wanting to get their toes into a barrel of grapes.

Co-owner Brent Park said the first open day last year was more about the wine tasting, whereas this year they allowed people to stomp the grapes, attracting a larger crowd.

"It was slow at first, but the last two hours we got slammed," he said. "There were quite a lot of tourists through, as well as kids, which was really cool to see. The kids just threw their shoes off and got involved, jumping in the barrel and then walking around with squished grapes between their toes."

Mr Park and co-owner Sean Beer opened Volcanic Hills in 2013 producing quality New Zealand wines in Rotorua, using grapes sourced from New Zealand's best growing regions.

Mr Park said the point of the open day was to show people the full process of wine making, from the stomping of the grapes to the ageing process.

"We had Martinborough grapes to stomp in, they got to taste some of the juice, then a 2013, a 2014 and a 2015 Martinborough pinot noir to experience the taste difference."

Mr Park said when it comes to buying wine at a supermarket or liquor store, people can be quite wary of what they are buying so the open day was a good way of putting the people's minds at ease.

"What we are trying to do is show people what we do, to let them in so they can see that we don't just put our labels on other people's bottles.

"It's all made right here, in their backyard."