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! 

 

 

Wine Pairing Dinner + A Ten Mile Run

On Thursday night, Fred and I joined two other couples for a wine pairing dinner at Shula's Steakhouse in Saucon Valley. 

The wines featured that night were imported from Muses Estate, a vineyard located in Greece.  At first, we weren't sure how good Greek wines would be because let's face it...we all know that good wine comes from California, Italy, France and Australian, to name a few.  But we were pleasantly surprised as we made our way through the chosen wines of the evening.

We started with two, nice white wines to accompany the appetizer and first course.  However, the two wines that really stood out to me were the ones paired with the second and third courses.  They were both dry reds with amazing flavor and complexity.  Each of the courses were of Mediterranean fare and my favorite was the main entree...their Spinalis steak.  I learned that a Spinalis is a rich, well marbled cut that covers the top of the rib-eye.  These steaks don't need to be marinated.  When grilled correctly, they are as tender as filet mignon, but with all of the flavor of a rib-eye.  This cut is very similar to a flank steak.  Unfortunately, due to lighting and good conversation, I didn't get any food photos.

Here's the crew...

Before we left, my stepdaughter wanted to take some photos outside by the pool.  I wanted to wear my new shoes, so I chose this black dress and pulled it all together with a tan belt and copper necklace. 

Fred and me...

A few times a year, we like to attend these wine-pairing dinners at Shula's.  Each time we go, we learn more about wines from around the world and we have to opportunity to taste delectable food that is second to none.  

This morning, Jesse was nice enough to accompany me on a ten mile run.  He hasn't been running, so he met me at my house with his bike.  We covered a little over ten miles on an out and back course along some roads and the tow path.  It was ridiculously humid and gross, and a little muddy on the trails!  At ten miles, my watch registered 1:19, but we had another tenth of a mile to get back to my home. 

Local meteorologists are calling for some nasty storms tonight here in the Lehigh Valley.  I am hoping that everything stays in tact along the LVHN Marathon for Via course since the race is tomorrow morning.  I will be up {bright and early} to report for a 4:45 am post time at my relay exchange zone.  It's looking like an early bedtime for me tonight.  Enjoy!