Connecticut has wineries?
Today LinZ, her bf, and I went to the Connecticut Wine Festival in Guilford, CT. I know what you're thinking: wineries in Connecticut?? I'd never been to a wine festival, so I loaded my stomach full of carbs, slathered on the sunscreen, and grabbed the camera.
The entire set-up was like the world's tiniest fair: they had a huge tent, lemonade stand, outhouses, a stage, llama farm, and haybales.
One of the first things I noticed was a kid who was clearly old enough to walk but instead contented himself with smearing chocolate all over his face while being pulled along in a cart.
We were given a punchcard to take to each wine vendor, and a glass with which to do the begging. Under the big tent, local wineries set up tables where they had a few of their select wines available for sampling. It was a pretty simple process: just go up to the vendor, and they start describing your wine and pouring a little bit (barely 3 oz) into your glass. Then you swirl it around your glass (and if you're like me, stick your nose as far as you can into the class and sniff away, but eventually realize that it all smells like fruit or cat's piss or both). This repeats a few times and then you wander to the next table.
See this man swirling the wine in his glass? He clearly smells a more complex bouquet besides 'fruit in general' and cat's piss.
This table definitely, definitely had the best wine of the entire festival. They had a wine called "Three sheets" which I ended up purchasing.
The vendor mentioned that all the local wineries were family-run (hers had been in the family for four generations); and that they all knew each other, and coordinated what they would showcase for the wine festival. A definite theme this year: apples. Every table had at least one or two apple-flavored wines. I Never thought I'd like apples with wine, but hell, I ended up loving it more and more as the afternoon went on and this kept happening to my glass:
Around the 3rd or 4th vendor, we stopped to take a picture and make Hannibal Lecter noises.
And around the 6th vendor, I saw the kid in the cart again, his face still smeared with chocolate, and still not walking.
And check it out: llamas!!!
And where llamas go, so does poop. Isn't it oddly pellet-shaped for such a large animal?
There was also a goat. As NW would say, it had murder in its eyes...
That's about all the photos of the festival that I can put up! Most of them are of llamas or are llama-related anyways. I've decided that I'm a fan of llamas and even more so of wine festivals... even if Connecticut wine tastes like the older, frumpier, barren sister of the West Coast version. Go Connecticut! You may not have good wine, but at least you've got haybales, an adequately sized wine festival and a random South American animal farm.
The entire set-up was like the world's tiniest fair: they had a huge tent, lemonade stand, outhouses, a stage, llama farm, and haybales.
One of the first things I noticed was a kid who was clearly old enough to walk but instead contented himself with smearing chocolate all over his face while being pulled along in a cart.
We were given a punchcard to take to each wine vendor, and a glass with which to do the begging. Under the big tent, local wineries set up tables where they had a few of their select wines available for sampling. It was a pretty simple process: just go up to the vendor, and they start describing your wine and pouring a little bit (barely 3 oz) into your glass. Then you swirl it around your glass (and if you're like me, stick your nose as far as you can into the class and sniff away, but eventually realize that it all smells like fruit or cat's piss or both). This repeats a few times and then you wander to the next table.
See this man swirling the wine in his glass? He clearly smells a more complex bouquet besides 'fruit in general' and cat's piss.
This table definitely, definitely had the best wine of the entire festival. They had a wine called "Three sheets" which I ended up purchasing.
The vendor mentioned that all the local wineries were family-run (hers had been in the family for four generations); and that they all knew each other, and coordinated what they would showcase for the wine festival. A definite theme this year: apples. Every table had at least one or two apple-flavored wines. I Never thought I'd like apples with wine, but hell, I ended up loving it more and more as the afternoon went on and this kept happening to my glass:
Around the 3rd or 4th vendor, we stopped to take a picture and make Hannibal Lecter noises.
And around the 6th vendor, I saw the kid in the cart again, his face still smeared with chocolate, and still not walking.
And check it out: llamas!!!
And where llamas go, so does poop. Isn't it oddly pellet-shaped for such a large animal?
There was also a goat. As NW would say, it had murder in its eyes...
That's about all the photos of the festival that I can put up! Most of them are of llamas or are llama-related anyways. I've decided that I'm a fan of llamas and even more so of wine festivals... even if Connecticut wine tastes like the older, frumpier, barren sister of the West Coast version. Go Connecticut! You may not have good wine, but at least you've got haybales, an adequately sized wine festival and a random South American animal farm.
posted by The Huang at 9:05 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home