Jun 26th“A Red Grape”

One of the funniest things that happened at a winery visit was one of the shortest. We were at a winery in West Virginia and tasted a red wine. It was labeled simply Red Wine. My husband asked what kind of grape was used in the wine. The woman who was pouring for our tasting looked confused a second, then she said “Red”. What else is there to say!

Jun 24thBeware of Love at First Taste

When we first started visiting wineries and doing tasting, we believed that if a 1 or 2 ounce  sample tasted great, it would be a good idea to buy lots of wine to take home. Talk about naive! We were tasting at a winery in Indiana and the wine we were given in tasting glasses seemed really, really  good. So when it came time to leave, we bought a mixed case of the two wines we liked. When we opened one of the bottles a couple of weeks later, it wasn’t at all what we expected. In truth, it wasn’t even good. We didn’t learn our lesson quickly and this happened again with wine from a winery in Kentucky.

The moral of this story is that when you are tasting several wines sometimes the flavors blend together. A good rule at a new winery is stay a while and drink a glass of wine. If it still tastes good, it’s safe to buy more. We finally learned our lesson!

Jun 23rdHome Tasting Rooms

This one is one of the most unusual experiences we’ve had when going wine tasting.

Sometimes a winery doesn’t really have a tasting room but are open for tastings. I’m not talking about the ones who have a room with a separate entrance, like a converted garage, or even one that has a tasting room in their basement with its own door. What I mean is walking into their living room with a bar in the corner. The family bathroom is the used for visitors. It doesn’t even seem like it would be legal.

We’ve done wine tastings in each of these venues. The oddest experience was in Pennsylvania, don’t even know where we were, just on our way home from a trip. We had just finished a late lunch and thought a tasting would be a fun way to end our trip and start home. We found where the winery was supposed to be, drove up the drive and found two couples drinking outside of a house. We were sure the map was wrong and started to turn around and leave. One of the men comes to the car and asked if we wanted to taste some wine. Being adventurous we said sure and got out. What followed was one of the oddest tastings ever. Wine brought out in ice water glasses (often)  without explanation of the grapes at all; a trip to the restroom gave us a view of “the tasting bar”, it seemed more like drinking at a friends home (but we were strangers).

Interesting experience, but I wouldn’t recommend it.

Jun 21stRained in at a Winery

Getting rained in at your favorite winery can be an interesting experience –good and bad. We were finishing up a tasting and getting ready to leave for the day when a major deluge decided to hit Virginia. The Virginians in the winery were rather excited since it had been a long hot summer without rain. Since we were on vacation, we decided to just make the best of a bad situation, order a glass of wine, and wait out the downpour.

Now comes the bad part; it wasn’t just rain. Hail started coming down quite hard. The noise sounded like a major storm was setting in. Thankfully it was short. However, when we left the winery to get in the car, we found quite a bit of hail damage to my Toyota Celica. When we got home, and had it appraised we needed a new hood and a complete paint job. A fun day turned out to have bad results. Thank goodness for the insurance. In the long run, the wine visit was worth it.

Jun 20thA Cautionary Wine Tasting Tale

You might have heard that you should eat before going wine tasting. But if you’re an inexperienced taster you might not think it matters, after all most tastings offer crackers. Believe me, it’s sound advice.

A lot of my favorite wine adventures happened at Barboursville Vineyards and Winery, my favorite winery. This one was our first trip there. We were novices to tasting good wines. (Yes, it was a long time ago.) We had planned a day of visiting several wineries and planned to eat breakfast on our way to the first winery, but we were staying in the country and the winery is in the country and there were no restaurants to be found. We decided to stop at Barboursville and eat before the next one which was closer to town. Big mistake! The pourer that day at the winery had graduated from UVA the night before and wanted to celebrate. Her pours for us (and herself) were quite generous. We tasted several wines and were quite toasted by the time we left.

Moral of the story, wine tasting is lots of fun, but you need a nice meal before you start your wine tour.

Jun 19thDirections for Wine Tasting

Kentucky’s wineries are open! After 70 days of Wine Sayings, let’s move on and try something new.

While browsing the blog, I realized I’d forgotten to continue with my Wining Adventures. So here’s some new tipsy tales.

We were traveling to Nashville for a weekend and found a winery that was a convenient stop along the way. The winery was run by an older couple and the tasting room was full of antiques and decorative items to purchase. To tell the truth, I don’t even remember the wine; but the tasting experience was a story we’ve told over and over. While we and two other couples waited to taste the wine, the woman brought us a dish of crackers and small cubes of cheese, which of course is not unusual. It became odd when we were given instructions on the proper time to eat the cracker, taste the wine, and eat the cheese. We thought that was a bit much but when she gently smacked the hand of the man next to us when he didn’t follow directions was what made it such a good story. We were laughing when we left the winery.