A visit to the vineyards

A little over a year ago I went on a wine tour in Williamsburg, VA.  The atmosphere was excellent, the people interested, and many of them knowledgeable.  After a tour of the vineyards, we visited the "dungeon" where they keep the barrels and where the wine is made, I guess, that was pretty cool, literally.  My favorite part was the actual tasting of the wine.  They had several bottles ready for us to taste but no one told me there would be a quiz. 

I hate tests.  Well, it was more like we take a sip and we had to write down what we tasted.  To me, at the time, wine was wine--it tastes good, I wrote after my first sip.  Then I heard others call out "citrus, grapefruit, peach, oak"  --what the heck..there's oak in my wine?  Any way, I failed miserably but I still got to drink my wine.  

Oh yeah that was the other thing, they provided us a bucket to spit out the wine -- seriously, that's just wasteful.  I wont be needing a bucket, thank you.  Thank goodness I was not driving that day because after tasting several varities I was feeling pretty good.  

I decided that day that would try harder to really pick out the flavors, to better understand wine and the makings, and to educate myself a little more about wine and food combination.  

I ran across Neil's blog On the Grapevine recently and became interested in what he had to say so I invited him to be a guest on my blog.  He will give us a few lessons, ideas, and maybe even answer some questions about wine grapes, wine selection, etc.  Don't be shy, ask away.  I plan to post about wine when the mood strikes us or when we have a really good recipe deserving of some really great wine. Check out Neil's blog too, full of information and ideas.

Guest post coming soon...stay tuned!