Category Archives: winery

Connecticut, Passport, winery

CT Wineries – Passport 2010

The 2010 Passports are out! Last Saturday was opening day of the Passport to Connecticut Farm Wineries contest. Pick up a Passport at any of the participating wineries.

Visit 16 of the 30 wineries, get your Passport stamped, and submit it by November 7, 2010. The 2 grand prizes are 2 week trips to Spain!

The program is a bit confusing this year. The site says 23 wineries, yet the Passport booklet says 30. The extras in the Passport are:

According to their press release, the new ineries on the trail this year are Saltwater Farm Vineyard, Taylor Brooke Winery, Connecticut Valley Winery, and Holmberg Orchard.

Ever been to a barrel tasting? A barrel tasting is an event to introduce people to wines still in the barrel. This wine is very different than the bottled wine. Often there is an opportunity to buy futures. Local upcoming Barrel tastings:

Cheers!


Connecticut, farms, locavore, Passport, raw milk, winery

Saturday’s Forage, 5/1/2010

This week’s forage took me to

Holbrook Farm, where I scored:

  • spinach
  • mustard greens
  • scallions
  • raw goat’s milk from Beltane. (Yes! Holbrook carries raw goats milk!. Tastes like, um, milk.)
  • cheeses from Cato Corner Farm and Sprout Creek Farm. This one, with a tangy brie-meets-light-blue-cheese kind of taste, had my name all over it.
sophie_cheese
Sophie Cheese

DiGrazia Vineyards, where I picked up the Passports because it was Opening Day for the 2010 Wine Trail!

Stuarts Family Farm, where I scored:

  • several different cuts of beef
  • eggs

And gazed upon the grazing cows.

stuarts_cows
Stuart's

Maple Bank Farm, where they were having an open house up at the greenhouses and sheep shearing open to the public. I scored:

  • collards
  • arugula from Riverbank Farm
  • Starts for the garden: basil, thyme, tarragon, parsely, eggplant, beets and red cabbage
maple_bank_sheep
Freshly sheared and following the food
spinning
Spinning Wool

New Morning Natural Foods, where things seem to be back to normal after the huge Earth Day event. I scored:

Whew!

winery

Five S’s of Wine Tasting

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One of the events of  Cecelia’s Birthday weekend was the Five S’s of Wine Tasting class at McLaughlin Vineyards. The class, also known as Wine 101, was given by Leo Gulino, The Wine Tutor.

The Five S’s are:

  1. See
  2. Swirl
  3. Smell
  4. Slurp
  5. (S)chew (poetic license)
5s
Left to right: Dee Dee, Sophie, Amy (front), Cecelia (hiding), Phyllis, and Leo

Leo told us about the different regions of the tongue and where bitterness, saltiness, sweetness, and sourness are detected.

Dee Dee served up 10 different wines so we could see how the different wines affected different tongue regions.

While food is not generally served at tastings, Dee Dee set out a fantastic spread so that we could also experiment with food and wine pairings. (Dee Dee really let her Italian side show here!)

Once home, we continued our studies.

local_wines
Applying the 5 S's to Local Wines

I am very much looking forward to their “Sideways” tasting of Pinot Noir wines on April 17.

Connecticut, farmer's markets, foraging, locavore, winery

Sunday’s Forage, 1/31/2010

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Since the both the Fairfield Market and City Seed Wooster/New Haven Market were closed yesterday, I didn’t do my usual Saturday forage. Instead, I went up to the “quiet corner” of CT to Sharpe Hill Vineyard in Pomfret. I am quite fond of their Cabernet Franc and my local liquor store ran out. It’s a 92-mile road trip and I didn’t get there on my Passport Wine Trail Tour last year. On the ride, we passed the town of Coventry (of The Coventry Farmers Market fame) and thought hmmm, it’s not that far. So today (Sunday), I foraged at the Coventry Farmers market. What a market! (I hear that the summer market has 50 vendors and had 5000 customers on opening day last year. Wow.)

I scored:

  • stew beef from New Boston Beef in N. Grosvenordale, CT
  • cheeses from  Cato Corner Farm, Beltane Farm, and Ladies of Levita Road, Lebanon, CT
  • celeriac, yellow and red onions, and bok choy from Wayne’s Organic Garden in Oneco, CT
  • Can’t Beet It (a beet and horseradish condiment) that they assure me was made from local farmers market produce.
  • Peregion and Jacob’s Cattle dried beans, butternut squash, and raspberry jam from Purity Farm in Moosup, CT
  • cabbage from Highland Thistle Farm in Canturbury, CT
  • arugula microgreens from Two Guys from Woodbridge

There were quite a few other vendors there and it was well worth the trip.

From New Morning Natural Foods, I scored these local items:

Not a bad take for a low-market week!