Galena Cellars Vineyard & Winery

'Tis the season for weekend getaways. If there is one thing Rob and I like to do it's get away from the city for a few days. Personally I'm happiest being amongst nature and fresh air.

We took a trip recently to Galena, Illinois. A historic town right along the Mississippi river. The city is super duper tourist-y but still a lot of fun. One of the highlights was our trip to Galena Cellars Vineyard & Winery. Vineyard tours and wine tastings are always a good time. Wine time! Oh yeah. I was really impressed by their dry reds. I find that a lot of Midwest wineries have sweet reds. Yack. Not a fan but sweet wines are quite popular. They're just not for me I suppose.

After our wine tasting and tour and our sharing a bottle with some new friends (fun!), we took a walk around the property. I took the above photo just across the street from the winery. Cornfields as far as the eye can see. Although the corn crops in that area are suffering because of the drought and should have been much taller. Sad.

Picturesque puffy white clouds. I love when clouds look like cotton candy. I just want to pluck them out of the sky and eat them. Ahhhh, nature!

Michigan Wine Tour...Second Stop: Tabor Hill

Whoa. I'm so behind with the wine tour postings. Seven wineries in two days and so far I've only blogged about one! I'll be honest, after so many tastings things start to blur. But this was only our second winery so I was still coherent. Actually, I was coherent the whole time, really. Yes, really! Samples in general aren't very big and I weigh 225 pounds so it takes a bit for me to feel the vino. So bring it on!

Am I making any sense?

Okay so, obligatory vineyard pictures to follow. But first I'd like to say again how beautiful the weather was for mid-October. I was wearing shorts!

I loved Tabor Hill. It was truly picturesque. My only complaint is that their tasting room was tiny and there were a lot of people packed in trying to sample wine. We were told they were in the process of expanding. Hallelujah! Wine lovers rest easy tonight.

 Pretty, pretty vines

 Wine and food. Mmmm!

 More pretty, pretty vines

Tabor Hill had a complimentary wine tour. I love a good tour. Rob snapped this photo of me. Notice our lovely tour guide in the bottom left corner. I can't remember her name. I blame my age, not the wine. Ha....ha.   

 Wow those things hold a whole lot of wine....

Ferrante Winery

My motto: Never pass up a wine tasting opportunity.

I stick to this motto wholeheartedly. So of course when my parents suggested a wine tasting at Ferrante during my last visit to Ohio, I could not refuse. I recently got back and I miss my family already. Sad face. But I have lots of great memories. Specifically, the memory of drinking all of these wine samples in the course of 20 minutes and barely being able to walk.

 

Slurp, slurp, slurp.

Yeah, that was fun! Can I get a "Whooohoo!"?

The temps here have been HOT. Like 95 degrees HOT so no baking the past couple days. But...there is a cool-down this weekend and I have plans to bake now that the weather will be cooler. Can I get another "Whooohoo!"? Anyone?

Wine Time (oh Yeah)

So many wines so little time, right? Well I sure think so. I picked up some new wines to try the other day. I totally hate to admit this but I am drawn to the way a wine bottle looks and sometimes it influences my purchasing decision. Yes it's true! But admitting this is my first step to recovery. I really should ignore the pretty labels and look into the whole wine rating thing-a-ma-jig. Yes, I will do this. I can do this!

I picked the above bottles because they were on serious sale. Yes I buy wines because they are on sale too! Ugh.

The Coppola 2009 Pinot Noir retails for about $20 but I got it for $10. It's a good wine, not real fruity but smooth. I would definitely pay $20 for it if I had to.

The Head Snapper (I really liked the way this bottle looked...shhhh) retails for about the same as the Coppola but I also got it for $10. I haven't tried this one yet but when I do I will update.

And then there's the Flip Flop Cabernet Sauvignon. It retails for $14 and was a lot cheaper when I picked it up. It's really not too bad for an inexpensive wine.

Nothing beats my favorite wine Beso de Vino. Love that wine. It's a delicious blend of 85% Syrah and 15% Garnacha and it's also not expensive, only about $12 per bottle. The Wine Advocate gave it a 90 point rating which I've learned  means it's an "outstanding" wine. I must agree.

All this talk about wine makes me thirsty. Is it 5 o'clock yet?

Fenn Valley Winery Tour

I've been meaning to post this blog for months. Back in October Rob and I went to Saugatuck Michigan for my birthday weekend getaway. The entire weekend was picture perfect. The leaves were at their autumn peak and the weather was amazing. Aside from all the miscellaneous wine tastings and good foods my absolute favorite part was the winery tour at Fenn Valley Winery. When we arrived in Saugatuck we stopped for a bite then headed to the bed and breakfast to check in. When we walked into the room there was a bottle of champagne and tickets to the winery tour at Fenn Valley. Rob had set it all up as a surprise...I had no idea! It was the best birthday present.

The tour consisted of a tractor ride through the winery with 12 different samples (some of us snuck a few extra smaples...shhhh) and some frolicking in the vineyard. There were maybe about 18 people on this particular tour and it happened to be the last tour of the season. What luck! We headed over to the Grape Train Station...choo-choo....



All the people on the tour were friendly. I think some of them had been doing some tasting prior to the tour, particularly this group of 3 friends. They were rather loud gals and they were ready to chug some samples. Whoo hoo! We also met a lovely couple that knew the owner of the winery. They had been on the tour like 500 times and knew everything by heart. If there are winery tour trophies I'm sure they have a whole shelf of them. There was also another couple that honed in on us from the moment we stepped into the Grape Train Station. Coincidentally they are from the Chicago area and we found out they were staying at our bed and breakfast. I wish I could remember their names....Heather and Keith maybe...or Brad and Angelina...or...hmmm well anyway she reminded me of Sarah McLaughlan-just the way she looked. She chatted with us the entire tour and had lots of witty remarks. She was quite fun. Later that night they were hanging out at the bed and breakfast when we came back. They were drinking Dom Pérignon and playing some board games. They insisted we share the bottle of Dom. We couldn't pass that up! We had some good conversation and hung out for quite a while. Then off to bed we went and we didn't see them again. I guess we were just two ships that passed in the night...ahhhh...okay back to the tour...

We stopped and checked out some vines. Isn't this thrilling?! Well it is after about 4 samples....

Adjacent to the vineyard was a little pine forrest, also quite thrilling!

The obligatory photo of the Fenn Valley sign:

And, the most amazing part was the sunset! Just as we were leaving and after many samples I couldn't resist snapping photos left and right of the beautiful sunset. An amazing way to end the tour!

Ohhhhh...

Ahhh....

Fenn Valley Winery...we will be back!

Binny's

Binny's is a local Chicago beverage shop. And by beverage shop I mean a place to buy wine and other sorts of alcohol-related drinky-drinks. I signed up for a Binny's card. It's kind of like a preferred shoppers club card. When certain wines go on clearance, you just hand over your card to the cashier and then, wham! bam! You get big discounts. I went through a phase of drinking cheap-o vino. But no more cheap wine! I got a $50 bottle of wine for $15! Yes, I did. Okay, you might think $15 is cheap, but it's really a $50 bottle. Binny's will no longer be carrying it and that's why it's on deep deep sale. It's a 2003 mix of Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot from the Colchagua Valley in Chile. Zane would be so proud of me.

Oh and I must add...the Binny's store that's closest to my house is in a castle. Yes, a castle! Well kinda of a castle... I'll take photos next time I'm there which I'm sure will be soon.

Wine

I love wine. The past few months I've been going through a phase of drinking inexpensive wine. The only reason I was getting it was because I thought well, wine is wine. But It's not. I'm not really knowledgeable when it comes to wine but I have realized I can never drink cheap wine again. Ever.

Rob and I have started exploring new wines. White is Rob's favorite and until recently, mine. I've been exploring red wines. I got a bottle of 2007 Syrah from Spain:

This bull's got balls

This wine is delicious! And not really all that expensive. I'd like to take a wine class so I can learn more about the flavors and accents. This bottle, for example, says it has hints of roasted coffee, baked berry and sweet herb aromas. I didn't quite pick up on that exactly. But it was good! So I guess I'll just keep drinking wine until I become more knowledgeble. Or take a class. :)