Can I just say I love LivingSocial? Not only did I just buy a 5-time pass to a local yoga studio, but this past weekend some friends and I went to North Carolina for a wine tasting tour. Now, regardless of my co-workers telling me that a “real” wine tasting consists of one sipping wine, swishing it through one’s mouth, then spitting it out, I’d just like to say that no one dared spit out these deliciously sweet and dry concoctions blessed by God himself. We left for Spartanburg (home of the Spartans – ha, I jest), after Kat, Emily, and I got off work Friday afternoon. We arrived to Jess and Amy’s around 8:00, where we commenced to sit around, chat, and do some pre-tour wine drinking for a few hours.
The next morning we headed to North Carolina for the wine tour run by Travels in Wine. We took the Hendersonville to Asheville tour, starting out with our shuttle driver’s winery, Falderal Winery. Everything of theirs was so delectably sweet, I could’ve bought every single bottle on their racks. But, alas, I am not made of money, so I settled for a Pinot Grigio for myself and a Chardonnay for my mom. We also received a mini wine-making lesson that had Kat wanting to get started on her new wine-making hobby stat.
Next, Bus Driver Paul took us a half hour away to our next winery, the Burntshirt’s. I didn’t care much for any of their wines, unfortunately. Unlike Falderal’s sweet wines, Burntshirt makes a lot of dry, bitter tasting wines. Probably if you’re a wine connoisseur you favor that kind of thing, and while there was one red wine that wasn’t too bad, most of it was too dry for me. Apparently they got their names from a tradition of burning their shirts after one burnt shirt at the winery caused for a successful harvest. The sommelier was a comedic European who continuously humored a tall blond’s questions when it was clear that she was feeling the drink and having a good time. She and her mother, also blond, were doing the tour together, and even though the daughter looked several years older than me, her personality reminded me of a child. Not in an immature way, but that of sustaining a certain innocence. I’m sure some people would probably just call that flighty, but I thought it was rather refreshing.
After the tasting, we went outside and had a buffet-style lunch that included barbecue, potato salad, and baked beans with our choice of wine. The girls and I split a white wine between us, but I had quite the feat finishing it off. I felt a little too satiated by the end of lunch. The good thing about the 35 minute drive to the last location was that we were allowed to pop a bottle of wine on the way to the winery. Someone decided on the red wine I had liked, and I spent almost the whole time gazing out the window watching the scenery. I had forgotten how beautiful the mountains are in the winter.
Me, thinking it’s really cool to drink wine on a bus.
The last winery we visited, which I can’t for the life of me remember the name of, was in the prettiest location of them all. I can only assume that we were deep into Asheville by this point. I have no idea on my own, as I was sipping red wine on the bus ride there and hardly paying attention to street signs and such. We’ll just call it Jackson’s Winery, because it was hosted by the calmest and loveliest Great Dane I’ve seen to date.
Jackson. He kept giving everyone with cheese in their hands sad eyes. I mean, who wouldn’t give this guy some cheese?
I didn’t particularly like any of the wines here, either. At one point, I dumped a red into Emily’s glass to finish, because I was through with getting tipsy off wine I didn’t much like. This is not to say the winery wasn’t any good. They did have some good wines, I just can’t remember which ones I liked and which ones I didn’t. By this point, I was starting to shift into neutral and sufficed to just enjoy the scenery.
All in all, it was a fun day, and I would love to take more trips like that. LivingSocial’s where it’s at if you want to travel at a discount and have a budget. The tickets were originally $150, but we got them for $75, AND that included our lunch. No wonder I looked like this at the end of the day:
Wine tours wear a person out, you know? It was a delightful nap, though.
After we were dropped back off at the visitor’s center, we went back up to Falderal Winery to buy some wines since it was only ten minutes away and was the winery with all the sweet stuff we liked. I wish I could’ve bought more, but I can’t wait to break into my Pinot and give my mom her Chardonnay. She’s not much on sweet wines, but I think she’ll definitely make an exception for this particular bottle.
That night we went to Greenville for some Mexican food, and no offense to Downtown Columbia, which I love, but Greenville looked so much nicer. That’s not to take away from Downtown Columbia, though, which is a little grungier in character, but still fun. I was just mesmerized by how nice Greenville was. I’d never been there before and have never had the impression that it was a well-developed place, but I was pleasantly surprised.
