Well, I love it too. My husband and I have experimented a bit with wines and found a couple we liked, but I've always wanted to do a tasting. Curious, I looked on the internet to find some wineries/vineyards in our area and found Haight-Brown Vineyard. First opened in 1973, it is the first established winery. How awesome is that? I thought it sounded perfect for our first tasting!
When the day came for us to venture off to our first wine tasting, it was a very rainy, cold, dreary day. Still determined to go out there and do something out of the ordinary for us, we went out on our merry way to Haight-Brown Vineyard in Litchfield, CT!! I was soooo excited when we arrived, the first thing I saw out my window was the vineyard itself, with rows and rows of grapes! Then we pulled into the parking lot and I layed eyes on the largest wine barrel I have ever seen in my life!! Seriously, HUGE! As we entered the winery, I was so anxious to explore. We went up the stairs to the little gift shop and looked around. The inside of the winery is absolutely gorgeous with the wood bar and floors and the fireplace, along with wine barrel tables and chairs. They have all kinds of goodies like chutney, spreads, wine glass/bottle accessories, cute knick knacks and even doggie squeak toys that look like wine bottles! (I thought those were adorable) Now comes the best part. The reason that brought us there. The wine tasting!! Imagine sitting inside a historic, cozy winery with the rain pouring outside, you're inside all warm sipping on some wine. Perfect right? Romantic? I sure thought so!! My husband and I decided to do a full tasting and that included tasting 12 wines, with a cheese plate and chocolate plate for $15. Not bad. The girl who was conducting the tasting was very friendly and nice and she let us share. The cheeses were a goat cheese, montery jack, and a peppercorn cheese. It didn't matter what cheese we had with what wine. The chocolate plate (cup) had 3 different chocolates that specifically went with 3 of their wines. Knowing it was our first tasting, she taught us the standard procedure - Smell the wine. Swirl the wine. Smell the wine again. When you swirl the wine, you are letting the air get at it and swirl into it, then smelling it afterwards, it should be more fragrant than the first time smelling it. You also have taste buds all around your mouth so it's good to swish it around in there a bit. The chocolates, she had us take a small bite, let it melt a bit in our mouths and then take a sip of wine while there was still chocolate in our mouths. The wines really brought out the flavor in the chocolate, and vice versa. Simply decadent.
Discovering that I enjoyed the goat cheese, I was curious about what other cheeses they had so she took us over to their "Cheese Nook" where they have a variety of cheeses you can buy. I tried some chocolate goat cheese and that was yummy too believe it or not. We ended up buying a very creamy spreadable cranberry cheese that almost resembled a cream cheese..and we also bought a smoked gouda cheese. We also ended up buying our favorite of their wines that we tasted - Strawberry Bliss. She also gave us 2 of their wine glasses for free!! What a great deal! We are learning what wines we enjoy more than others, we seem to favor white wines and fruit wines over red wines. A few other favorites from HB include - Covertside White, Picnic Red, and Pink Cadillac. Their Merlot was also very nice, it wasn't a favorite but you could so tell it was aged in an oak barrel, it really had an "oaky" taste to it. A cozy holiday wine perhaps??
After our fantastic tasting, we walked in the rain (with umbrellas) around the vineyard and we were even allowed to taste the grapes right off the vine! Overall, a fantastic experience and I'm very glad we had our first tasting at their winery!!**All of these pictures were taken by my husband and myself, they did not come off the website**
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