Yesterday, for our 12-year anniversary, T. and I went out to the Keuka Wine Trail for a “Wine and BBQ” tour – each of the seven wineries gave us wine tastings (about 5/winery) and a small plate of food pairings – things like grilled chicken, pulled pork, beef brisket, with a little side corn salad or mac salad, something like cornbread, and usually a little dessert.

It was pretty awesome.

For one, Keuka Lake is lovely. It’s a Y-shaped lake, with a lot of really nice vistas. Google Image Search doesn’t quite do it justice.

For another, the food was almost universally tasty (There was one protein where I had to ask T. what I was eating – turns out it was pork – it was slow-cooked and very bland, very sweet).

And for a third, the wines were just good. Sometimes, on a tour, you get a winery where you’re just… “mm. thanks. Bye.” There was none of that – a couple thinnish red wines, but the Finger Lakes is not really known for its red wines.

In the middle of the tour, we spent an hour in Hammondsport, which is an adorable little village full of tasty food & neat antique stores.

All in all, it was a lovely way to spend a morning & afternoon.

And then, in the evening, we stacked wood ;-D

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This weekend was the Cayuga (Lake) Wine Trail Wine & Herb Event.

The 17 wineries on the trail (All alongside and many within view of Cauyga Lake) participate.

You start at one winery, where you get a map and a glass, and at each winery along the way, you get a tasting (2-6 types of wine or, in one case, cider), a potted herb (or tomato, or lettuce, or pepper) plant, a recipe using that plant, and a sample of that recipe, cooked (or prepared), usually with a wine pairing.

Seventeen wineries. 2 to 6 tastings at each. /falls over/

Okay, really, we did it over two days. We tasted seven wineries up the West side of the lake, spent an hour at the outlet mall, had Dim Sum and tea for lunch, and hit the much-more-spaced-out 3 wineries on the East side; Sunday we picked up the seven we’d missed on the west, stopping for lunch at Knapp Winery in the middle.

There was a lot of really good wine. Even wineries I’d blown off before as being not complex enough, too tannic, or just too boring, were in good form this weekend. Everyone had out their best wines, the food tastings were very good, and I have seventeen little plants to put in the ground or pots as soon as Last Frost is past. Even the food tastings were good.

If I have a disappointment with the event – and I’d say this is the only one – it’s that I ended up with three basils, and I really would have liked one of them to be a mint instead.

But all in all, it was an immensely fun weekend of wine-ing. Will definitely do again.

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Weekends like this past one remind me what I love (and hate) about living down here.

Saturday was a trip to Horseheads to get T. fitted for a tux for an upcoming wedding we’re both in (Horseheads is the closest town with a Men’s Warehouse; it’s about an hour away). This involved driving through some of the most depressed and depressing parts of Southern Tier, NY, but it also involved random sights like this, a stop at a winery above Watkin’s Glen, a stop at a really nice restaurant, and a really nice drive with my spouse-person. I’ll chalk it up as a win: I’m still full from those ribs!

Sunday we were still feeling like driving, so we headed out to Liedenfrost Winery, where we stopped last weekend, got a little more wine, stopped at Atwater Vineyards for a tasting (Really, really, really good wine!) and then took a hike in the Finger Lakes National Forest.

We started discussing the history of the Reiassani people while we were walking & driving, so I’ll have some worldbuilding notes and maybe an exodus map later this week.