March Madness Wine Tour {East}

Hello on this winter wonderland morning!  The first day of spring is technically tomorrow, but it sure doesn't seem like it here on the east coast.  Last night it started to snow and after continuing overnight, we woke up to a slushy mess and a two hour delay.  Ugh....where is spring??

On Sunday afternoon, Fred and I ventured out on our last Lehigh Valley Wine Trail
excursion.  Two weeks ago, we covered the western tour, so we still had a few vineyards to hit on the eastern side.

First stop...Franklin Hill Vineyard.  I'm normally wearing sunglasses even on cloudy days, so the glare caught me off guard...hence the squinting.          

Franklin Hill is situated in Bangor on a farm off of the beaten path.  Their first experimental vines were planted back in 1976, so they've had their share of wine batches over the years.  We always love to go to Franklin Hill during March Madness because they have great food-wine pairings.  Last weekend was no different.  They featured a white chicken chili made by a local restaurant with a semi-dry white wine.  Yum!

We ended up with a few bottles on our way out, which wasn't surprising because some of their wines are our favorites.  The nice thing about Franklin Hill is that they have a few stores situated around the valley for convenient purchases of wine on a moment's notice.  

Franklin Hill always has a coffee and dessert stand right by the exit door for coffee-to-go and a sweet treat to end the visit.  Normally they feature something made with their wine such as brownies or cake, but this year they had several varieties of biscotti.    



The second {and final} stop of the day was Amore Winery, which is literally just a few miles up the road from our house. 



Greg {the owner} was our personal server for the day.  He is also a professor at a local college by day, so the food he serves is always catered by the school.  Hence...it is pretty good.  On the menu...beef stroganoff with noodles.  

  
A fun part of being a passport carrier is the gift at the end of the tour.  This year's giveaway...a wine tote complete with a cutting board, knife, wine opener and two napkins.   

Although we don't need two, this item may come in handy on future wine tasting trips....

Overall, it was another successful March Madness, and I'm not talking basketball!  Enjoy your day!

March Madness Wine Tour {West}

Hello everyone!  The past week has been a bit hectic in my household and if I wanted to keep sane, something had to give.  Unfortunately the blog was the one thing that got taken off of my long to-do list, but I'm back now with a few good upcoming posts this week.  

After a long weekend, my husband and I had some time to ourselves so we planned a little wine tasting venture in our area.  If you remember last year, we participated in the Lehigh Valley Wine Trail's March Madness, an annual event that involves purchasing a passport at any of the eight wineries and then planning a strategy to visit all of them during the first four weekends of March.  Each winery prepares a special food-wine pairing for this event as well.    

Check out last year's posts here:

March Madness Eastern Tour {2012} 

March Madness Western Tour {2012} 

First stop...our favorite vineyard...Pinnacle Ridge.  This is one of the smaller wineries, but their wines are tremendous.    

They offered their Riesling with a pulled pork sandwich topped with spicy mango chutney. 

Second stop...Vynecrest.  Their Vynecrest White was served with a vanilla-blackberry cupcake, which was divine.  We were pleasantly surprised with Vynecrest's Traminette {a semi-dry white similar to a Gewurztraminer} and took home a few bottles after the tasting.

The third and final stop was a visit to Clover Hill, one of the larger vineyards in our area. 

There we sampled chili with our choice of a sweet or semi-dry red.  I chose the sweet Concord variety since the chili was noted to be especially spicy.  Honestly, it was a nice pairing.  The sweetness of the wine balanced out the spiciness of the chili beautifully.  

Their second pairing was a Chocolate Cabernet and Cheesecake with chocolate shavings.  Fred didn't care too much for this wine, but I liked it.  Heck...I can never turn down anything that involves chocolate.    

The Chocolate Cabernet reminded me of a dessert wine, similar to a port {which is also at the top of my list}. 

It was such a fun day...good wine and great company all while supporting local wineries! 

 

 

V-day Review and a Wine Weekend

Hi everyone!  Sorry I've been a bit MIA for the past few days but here I am, ready to share my weekend adventures.  First things first, here's a glimpse at what my Valentine's Day looked like...cupcakes from two local bakeries, flowers from my husband and a student, cookies that served as table favors at my family's special meal, and a snapshot taken of my daughter and I at her school party.  

This past weekend was also filled with some running, a trip to a winery and a whole bunch of relaxing.  Fred and I found ourselves with no children on Saturday, so we decided to take advantage of the situation by heading out of town.  We live in an area where there are quite a few vineyards nestled together in what is called the Lehigh Valley Wine Trail.  Last spring I posted about some of our trips during their March Madness event...you can catch them here and here.  Because one winery in particular is far off the beaten path, we jumped in the car and headed north to Galen Glen for a visit.

Galen Glen was hosting a Valentine's event where they paired their Barrel 29 port with a chocolate peanut butter tart.  Holy moly, it was excellent...both the wine and the dessert!  Barrel 29 has to be one of my favorite port varieties and in my opinion...chocolate and PB is the best flavor combination going.  

Once we finished tasting, we left with a few bottles...some red and some white.  After the visit to the winery, my husband suggested another stop on our journey, the Yuengling Brewery, for a tour.  We weren't too far from Pottsville, PA, the home of Yuengling beer, so we headed that way.  Neither of us have ever been to the brewery itself, but we did go to college with one of the Yuengling daughters.  Plus, their Lager is Fred's favorite beer so it just felt right that we made a visit while we had the time.  

While it sounded like a good idea in the moment, we should have checked to see if they were open for business.  Apparently, the brewery is only open for tours during the months of April through December.  Fail on our part.  :(

However, we were able to turn our trip to Pottsville into a good situation by stopping at this little pub for a drink and some snacks.  Check out the cool {old} mural on the side of the building...

As for food, we split fried pickles with a spicy petal sauce and stuffed peppers with prosciutto and feta cheese.  

After a few other stops, we met our friends {Sib and Jolene} at the Riverwalck Pub for some burgers and beers to wrap up the evening.    

Sunday I woke up to frigid temperatures and windy conditions as I dressed for a longer run with the girls from Moravian.  Luck was on our side because I truly think we ran at the best part of the day.  As Sunday progressed it got windier and colder, so we were lucky and we covered almost nine miles in 70 minutes.  Afterwards, we headed down to the gym for some hurdle mobility drills and plank exercises...75 seconds per side.  Phew...!      

Yep...that's ice on their shins!  :)

Monday was a day off from school to honor Presidents' Day and I thoroughly enjoyed every minute.  An extra day off gives me time to make meals for the week, catch up on laundry and relax just a little bit more.  Plus, I was able to get in five miles before I started my day.  Gotta love holiday breaks!  Have a wonderful Tuesday...