Wine is fun!

That is, once you've had it out with your spouse, gotten things off your chest and then had some good making up *ahem*.  Oh yeah, wine is super fun!


Saturday rolled around and finally we slept in!  We all know that me and mornings are not best friends and I was not appreciating getting pushed out of bed at the crack-ass of dawn on vacation to go drink wine.  Wine tasting at ten in the morning is over-rated.  Wine for lunch?  Much better!


At the respectable hour of 11am, Drew and I set off for the Armida winery.  I really liked Armida because the staff was completely unpretentious.  The tasting room was this cool dome - I think it's called a geodesic dome??  Anyway, when we walked in they were playing fun music and given that it was a Saturday there was a really great laid-back energy about the whole place.  This was my kind of winery!  I especially loved their mascot!

Scenery opposite the tasting room

Now that Drew and I were friends again, I wanted to take pictures with him.

My smile is much less pained, can you tell?

Penny, the Armida mascot

Chilling on the counter

Their best-seller

Because I can't get enough of this scenery!

I knew no more about wine than I did the day before, but I felt immeasurably more comfortable in my own skin.  I opened up, asking a few questions and I wasn't shy about pouring out the remainder of my wine before we tasted a new one.  It was only once I felt better did I realize how tense I was about all of this.  

After Armida came Twomey Cellars.  This was the only winery I flat-out didn't like.  In my completely uneducated opinion, their wine was completely unremarkable.  We tasted a couple of chardonnays and they totally smelled like wood!  Drew said it was like licking wood but he's dramatic like that.  What I do know is that they spent a ton of money on their decor and atmosphere and should have spent more on their wine.  It was overpriced and everything we tasted was like the one before it.  We did the tasting but bought no wine - for the first time.  

 Not the greatest pic because it was really bright outside and 
comparatively darker inside and I'm no photographer.

Beautiful scenery though!

Standing close, being silly

We high-tailed it out of Twomey and headed for Arista.  I really liked Arista!  The people there were super friendly and I enjoyed myself so much!  Maybe it was me, maybe it was them, maybe it was Drew, the weather - I don't know.  I just know that this day was turning out to be a million times better than the past two.

The scenery here reminded us both of the gardens where we got married.

More silliness

Arista had both an indoor tasting, where it was primarily whites, and an outdoor one, which was all reds.  At the indoor tasting, Drew started chatting with the guy behind the bar who gave us the low-down of his favorite vineyards.  He was the one who told us how major it was that we met Nicole Batchy-ga-loopy and how awesome Unti was.  This couple next to us chimed in and started telling us about their favorite wineries and how we should make sure not to miss this one winery, which of course I can't remember the name.  But it doesn't matter because right after they left, he was like do NOT go to that winery.  Their wine is shit.  I like people like that, they put me at ease.

At the outdoor tasting, we chatted with Gabe.  He. Was. Awesome!!  You talk about an amazing energy!  We totally clicked, but then he started opening up to us, telling us how he left his job in computers because of the stress, his bout with ulcerative colitis (!), his abusive and damaging relationship with his ex-girlfriend and it left me wondering how and why people spill their guts with the slightest provocation (said the chick with a blog.)  Life story aside, he was really good people and we really enjoyed our time with them.  We left with a ton of wine from Arista! 

Since we'd gotten a later start, we only did those three wineries because they usually close at four or 4:30.  I didn't mind though - it was so much more enjoyable to be able to take our time rather than be rushed from one winery to the next because we're trying to cram in as many as possible before closing time.  This way, we were able to linger, walk around the property, hold hands and it was much closer to my original fantasy.  Only this was reality and we'd come through a tough couple of days to enjoy the other side and that's way better!