As I said, Steve and I were lucky enough to be invited along on this little adventure-with the added bonus of Benjy's parents serving as babysitters to our kids:)
We set out on a beautiful afternoon with Carroll County as our destination....
First stop: Linganore Winecellars.
Unfortunately, Linganore was hit by a freak tornado Saturday night and as we drove onto the property we saw trees uprooted and roofing materials strewn about. Luckily, no one was hurt and no serious damage was done to the vineyard itself. We tasted 16 of Liganore's wine. I actually really enjoyed their Plum dessert wine, tasted just like plums (which I love!) and is a good pairing with Asian or any spicy food. I'm not much of a red wine person, something about drinking it warm and the strength of it doesn't do it for me. BUT, I fell in love with their Steeple Chase Red. It pairs well with anything chocolate and at the tasting we were instructed to take a sip, eat the piece of chocolate given to us, and sip again. Delish! The woman conducting the tasting said that it is the perfect bookclub wine. So make a try of brownies and grab your favorite girlfriends:). Also, a fun thing we learned there was that if you like your wine on the very cold side, put seedless grapes in the freezer and add them to your glass in place of ice cubes.
Next stop: Black Ankle Vineyards
This was my favorite stop yesterday. The concept for their tasting room is very cool. The tasting room is inside an adorable yellow country house. It was constructed from materials on their farm. The house is insulated with hay, the wood is from the trees that had been cleared and the walls made of clay plaster. The roof is a "living roof", with soil and plants growing to capture rain waiter and heat/cool the building.
Since the vineyard is fairly new, their supply of wine is growing slowly. Unfortunately, they did not have any white wines available for tasting, but we enjoyed a nice flight of reds. We treated ourselves to a bottle of Syrah 2008 and enjoyed the snacks that Chrissie had packed for us.
The light was really bright yesterday, but I managed to grab a few pics of the property. Here is the "living roof":
Our final stop on the Sunday Wine Tour was Elk Run Vineyards.
Needless to say, we were feeling a little saucy at this point in the day;) But the man at Elk Run thought we were amusing, or at least pretended too! I also enjoyed one of Elk Run's red wines, Sweet Katherine. They had sangria mixed up using this wine that we were able to sample and of course we came home with a bottle so that I could make their recipe this summer.
Here is Steve surveying the vines at Elk Run:
It was a day filled with good wine, best friends, yummy food, fun music and lots of laughter (not to mention a few hours of precious "adult" time). So thank you to the Ashby's for inviting us along, we must do it again soon! Or at least get together soon and enjoy all this wine we bought.
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