Tag Archives: wineries

Ithaca, NY: Wine Tasting and the Supermoon

11 Dec

Our first full day in Ithaca, after an incredible dinner the night prior, brought us some of the most incredible weather.  Sunshine and blue skies greeted us at our incredible Airbnb rental in the middle of the woods (with a bonus porch and hot tub, which we thoroughly enjoyed with some wine on both nights!).  We had booked a private wine tour with Grapevine Country Tours with the plan to have them use their expertise to pick the wineries for us, with a stop for lunch at one of the wineries along the way, and not have to make any decisions all day long besides which wines to try.

They picked us up at our Airbnb right on time and our tour guide, a jovial middle aged man, immediately started asking us all sorts of questions and telling us all sorts of funny stories. He proved to be a very entertaining part of our day.

He took us to the next door Seneca Lake (Ithaca is on Cayuga Lake) because he said he thought we would enjoy their wineries more.

The first stop he chose for us was J.R. Dill Winery.  This wound up actually be our favorite wines of the day and had a beautiful view across the river.

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Tastings were about $3-$5 for 5-8 tastings and our driver would peek in when we arrived to make sure we got special treatment, which usually included extra pours, if not unlimited tastings.

We stopped at Hazlitt, which is one of the most famous wineries and their wines were pretty good. They also have a slushie tiki area which we didn’t try, but apparently it’s quite the attraction.
We also stopped at some crazy hippie winery that smelled like pachouli and had questionable cleanliness… but we embraced the present and tasted some wine and bought some hippie dresses and were on our way.
Wagner Valley has both a winery and a brewery on the same property, and both were very good.  They also had one of the largest areas and beautiful views.

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Our lunch stop was at Red Newt Cellar and both the wine and the food were very good.

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The bride to be even showed off her sobriety as we took photos of the sampler plate.

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The sampler had some salad, charcuterie and cheese samplings, grilled cheese, and tomato soup.

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We also ordered the gnocchi special.

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And the special grilled cheese.

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And… this… wtf was this?  Oh the wine.

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And of course the brownie sundae for dessert!

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On our way out of the Seneca Lake wine region we stopped at Chateau Lafayette Reneau.  The wines were pretty good but we all agreed that our first stop was best.

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Though I simply loved the view across the street.

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That night, we drove around the lake looking for a view of the “Super Moon.” We finally found it by sneaking into the Ithaca Yacht Club.  (shhhh… don’t tell)

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During our trip, we also stopped at a few of our old favorites, including Purity Ice Cream, Collegetown Bagels (twice), and DP Dough.  Ahhh college. We also stopped on campus where we hardly recognized it with all the new buildings.

It was a fantastic trip and we all thoroughly enjoyed NOT being broke in Ithaca.  A great place to have a bachelorette party.

Long Island Wineries

3 Jan

Lori, from StuffIAte, has been telling me about the virtues of the wineries in Long Island for years.  I was skeptical.

Could decent wine come out of Long Island?  I don’t know what I was picturing, but it sure wasn’t this…

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Our first stop was Lori and her Awesome Boyfriend’s favorite, Clovis Point.  We actually had a Groupon for a tasting and then glass of your choice with a cheese plate.  It was just about to expire (whoops!), so we decided to head out the week after Thanksgiving. (YAY for off season!)

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We tried the full menu and I was really impressed.  I enjoyed all the wines on the list.

I actually really got into Chardonnay (and Pinot Noir) when Mike and I were in Napa. I didn’t think I was a Chardonnay person, but turns out you can make a damn good Chardonnay if you know what you’re doing.  We all wound up taking some bottles of Chardonnay home, but I especially enjoyed the barrel fermented one.

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And so I drank it (and took home a bottle… or two)

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The cheese plate was a good little snack in the middle of the afternoon with the wine. And there is a lovely tented area outside nearer to the vineyard (Lori told us it’s open during the nicer weather).

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Cheers!

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I usually don’t post photos of people on the blog, but I think this picture of Lori and her ABF is just too cute not to post.

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The day was young, so we decided to head to another winery.  As it turns out, most of the wineries are within a few minute drive of each other.  It actually really reminded me of a little Napa.  It was quaint and homey and come on… vineyards!

Our second winery was Pindar.

There was a lovely windmill outside and the sun was just setting.

(Photo courtesy of Mike)

While the vineyard seemed lovely, I was not impressed by the tasters who didn’t care to explain anything and seemed to want to be left alone as much as possible.  I didn’t really LOVE the wine there and I wound up taking NO pictures. Whoops!

Our last stop of the night was at Duck Walk vineyard.  This is probably the best known LI winery, however, we went to the one on the North Fork, which was supposed to be “smaller.”  I can’t image what the “bigger” one looks like because this was was bea-u-ti-ful.

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The inside of the tasting room had these awesome chandeliers

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And really put us in the holiday spirit.

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And a lovely aquarium.

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The staff at this tasting were splendid, adding a lot of color to the tasting and just being all around nice people.  The cute guy serving us was talking about how he just can’t find a “nice girl,” so that’s your cue single female readers. Head out to Duck Walk in the North Fork to find your wine loving mate.

We wound up falling in love with their dessert wines.  It was all good, but there was something special about their late harvest Gewurztraminer called Aphrodite.  We also really enjoyed (and also took home) their Blueberry Port.

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Our trip out to Long Island was an eye opener. It was so beautiful and so lovely, I can’t believe we didn’t do it before.  We also had a lovely dinner at Love Lane Kitchen (post to come) that just made me fall in love with the area even more.  I can’t wait to go back.

Thanks Lori!

Check out Lori’s post about Clovis Point Winery and her photos of Briermere Farms, where we really enjoyed but I forgot to take pictures.