Sylvain found three wineries in our area and we visited each one with my brother, John, and his girlfriend, Jess. We met them at my Mom's house, where we dropped off the girls. She and Jay watched them ALL DAY and ALL NIGHT! Woohoo! Mom also gave me gifts on top of the free babysitting, so she's pretty much my favorite person ever.
Our first winery was Stone Brook Winery in Camp Springs. It was a beautiful place with very good wine. It was the closest of the three, so it felt like we were in our own backyard!
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| These dummies ordered beer while Jess and I tasted wines. |
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| I liked all but one of the five I chose. I bought a bottle of the Vidal Blanc. Yummy! |
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| Beautiful gardens surrounding the house. Very British and overgrown! |
Next, we drove about 35 minutes south to Augusta to visit Baker-Bird Winery. It was a beautiful historic house and cellar built into the side of a hill. We had a great historic tour and a wine-making demonstration in the gigantic cellar. These folks claim they are the first commercial winery in the US, but I overheard some other patrons scoffing that claim, insisting that Napa Valley has older wineries. I don't know, these people had documents for everything so.....whatever.
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| Walking down the driveway, that's the roof of the building on our left! |
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| We walked down a brand new staircase to the cellar and passed the side of the house where a porch (hopefully) once stood. Otherwise that door would have been dangerous. |
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| Ms. Bird, the owner, gave us the cellar demonstration. |
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| This pic doesn't do it justice: 90 ft long, 40 ft high, 40 ft wide. It was huge. At one time, it held almost 5,000 barrels of wine!! |
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| Our tasting companion - the biggest spider I've ever seen in real life! |
Our last stop on the mini wine tour was Seven Hills Winery in California, KY. It was by far my favorite! The view was breathtaking and the owners were very down to earth and pleasant. But...oh my goodness...the wine was DELICIOUS! I tasted every one they had, sweet and dry. I'm not a fan of sweet wine, but I loved ALL of their wines. I bought a bottle of the Cabernet Franc. I'm trying not to open it on a regular night and drink it all by myself!
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| Since it was our last stop before dinner, we all had a glass out on the porch. |
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| It was the only winery (out of the three we saw) in which you could SEE the vines from the porch. |
My day could have ended there and I would have been one happy camper, but Sylvain had more plans! We met up with Ann and Andy at the York Street Cafe for dinner where I had the best birthday steak of my life. Well, I'm not sure if it's better than Malone's in Lexington, but I think it might be. I should really visit them both again soon just to be sure.
Since we were having so much fun and the kids were well cared for, we didn't let the night end at dinner. Which was a shame, because our next move was not a great idea. I blame my brother.
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| We went to Bobby Mackey's. |
I always assume that everyone knows this bar, but alas, it's really only famous in Northern KY. It's supposed to be haunted. It's really just a sad, lonely, smokey country music bar. I've only been one other time in my life and I didn't enjoy it. I agreed to give it a try, and we had a good time, but the night ended like this:
1. I'm glad it was super early and we were the only people there.
2. I'm glad I did it, so I can say I've done it, and now I'll never have to do it again.
3. Mothers should not ride mechanical bulls.
4. I'm not going to let that unfortunate experience ruin my birthday, because when all was said and done, we had a really GREAT time!
I'm 100% sure that being 32 is going to be awesome!
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