Wine Tasting

A few weekends ago my wife and I had a hankerin for some Pompous Ass, so we headed 5 hours north to the Fingerlake region of New York state, where I knew where a Pompous Ass was. We were greeted to the area with a threatening sky, but we were not deterred. It doesn't rain INSIDE the wine tasting rooms on the Seneca Lake wine trail, so we couldn't have cared less. 

 We made reservations at a beautiful bed and breakfast directly on the wine trail.

 No, that is not the B&B. That is the first winery we came across ON THE WAY to our bed and breakfast.
No reason to drive by....we're on vacation.
And no, my wife is not saluting me, there was a sun in the eyes issue.

Rain or shine, this is a very beautiful area of the country.

Now, about the Pompous Ass I was speaking of.......

We drove around and visited many winery's over a 3 day period and each is special in it's own way.

Some of the tasting rooms are quite crowded .........

 while others were not. It seemed the "big name" winery's attracted the most attention but many of the smaller name guys gave you a bit of elbow room. We found some very good wines in some of the smaller, lesser known rooms.

 This tasting room was fairly new, only a year or so old. It's a renovated 100 year old barn that was big enough to hold a wedding reception, but we were the only 2 in the place. It seems others agreed with our opinion that this grower just really wasn't very good at his craft. I'm glad we stopped. The wine maker and his wife were very nice and I hope this new endeavor of theirs works out for them.

 Almost all of the winery's in the region are perched right on the edge of one of the 5  finger lakes. It's the effect the lake has on the weather that crosses the lakes before it embraces a field of vines, that makes this area a prime wine making region.

A tip we have learned over the years for those who don't often partake in the sport of wine tasting. When you enter a wine tasting room with your friend, I don't recommend that each of you buy your own tasting flight. If you do, you will be unable to visit many winery's, for obvious reasons. My wife and I SPLIT a flight. We give them $2 and we get to taste 6 or 7 different wines. The portions are small, it's a tasting not a guzzling. That taste is just enough for us to tell if we like it or not. If we do, we buy it. If not, we don't. Then off we go to the next winery. It's the people we meet that make the trip so fun. There are some real characters in the wine making business.

No matter if you drink wine or not, if you ever get the opportunity to drive around the scenic Finger Lake region, I would wholeheartedly recommend it.

NOTE:  If all of the pictures in this post look out of focus, I don't have an explanation for that.