This is the second installation of Passport to Connecticut Wineries, or Sophie and Cecelia’s adventures tasting their way through Connecticut wineries!
On Sunday, July 12, 2009 we visited Land of Nod Winery in East Canaan, CT. Traveling to East Canaan (from Newtown) is a scenic trip up Rt. 7, stopping just short of Massachusetts.
Land of Nod is one of the few wineries that doesn’t charge for their tastings.
The wines:
The Bianca was nice.
The Pinot Noir was just okay, though Cecelia really liked it.
The Blueberry-Raspberry wine was too sweet for my palate.
I didn’t taste much chocolate in the Raspberry Chocolate, although the wine flavor was enhanced after a few chocolate covered espresso beans.
I was immediately impressed with the grotto at the entrance. Once inside, the tasting consists of your choice of six of their 15 wines. Matt was our tasting guide and explained the whole process to us.
Matt, explaining the intricacies of a DiGrazia tasting
I tasted Anastasia Blush, Honey Blush, Blacksmith Port, Wild Blue, Wild Blue Too, Fieldstone Reserve, and Newbury. (I know that’s seven—I tasted some of Cecelia’s choices too!) I’m a red wine lover and don’t care much for white wines, rosés, or dessert wines and was pleasantly surprised with the Anastasia Blush, the Honey Blush, and the blueberry wines. I felt their reds were a little lacking: the Fieldstone Reserve had strong hints of iodine and the Newbury didn’t have much of a finish. Still, I have friends for whom the Newbury would be a good glass of wine. The blueberry wines were the surprise of the day since I am somewhat biased towards wine made with grapes. These delicious wines are also very high in antioxidants.
The tasting team at DiGrazia
The staff is delightful and make for a fun tasting, but are new to the business and could not tell us much about the composition of the wines. Perhaps we’ll have to come back at the end of the season when they are more, well, seasoned.
I left with bottles of Anastasia Blush, Honey Blush, Wild Blue, Wild Blue Too, and Newbury.
McLaughlin Vineyards
14 Albert’s Hill Road, Sandy Hook, CT 06482, (203)426-1533
I have been to McLaughlin’s tastings numerous times before, but this was the official Passport visit.
McLaughlin tastings are a tour though each of ther six wines: Chardonnay, Coyote, Snow Goose, Red Fox Rosé, Merlot, and Vista Reposa. Liz (our tasting guide) recounted the details and highlights of each of the wines as she poured. The McLaughlin tasting includes the etched McLaughlin wine tasting glass.
Vista Reposa is a particular favorite of mine. It goes with nearly everything I cook and each person I introduce to it enjoys it. The Red Fox Rosé is new this season and is quite refreshing. The Merlot goes particularly well with dark chocolate. I don’t generally like Merlot or dark chocolate, but together, I do!
Bruce McLaughlin: the man and his grapes
New life
Up close
I left with bottles of Merlot, Red Fox, and (of course) Vista Reposa. My apologies to Liz for leaving the camera in the car. I’ll catch you next time and make an update.)
Regular readers of this blog know that I visit McLaughlin Vineyards on a regular basis. They are one of the closest farms to my home and their Vista Riposa is a red wine that goes with just about everything I eat. This past weekend, I visited Digrazia Vineyards and Winery and enjoyed that as well.
The Passport program is an adventure in Connecticut wine tasting. The way it works is that you pick up a blue passport at any of the participating vineyards on the Connecticut Wine Trail. Visit at least 14 of the 26 wineries and have them stamp your passport. Submit your stamped passport to a participating winery by November 8, 2009 and you will be entered into a drawing for these prizes:
First Prize: January 31 to February 13, 2010. 13-night stay at the Benalmadena Palace, Benalmadena, Costa, Spain.
Second Prize: February 14-27, 2010. 13-night stay at the Benalmadena Palace, Benalmadena, Costa, Spain.
Additional Prizes: 15 Weekend Getaways, two nights, one room double occupancy at the Courtyard by Marriott Norwich, Norwich, CT.
First and second prize include one room double occupancy and round trip airfare for two to Spain.
I decided that this is the year I’m going to get my Passport stamped! Cecelia (my childhood friend) will be joining me in this endeavor. That means you can look forward to a series on our adventures in wine! So here’s the deal—you can sit there and read about all the great wine we’re tasting or you can get out there and get a Passport of your own. Better still—you can do both!
By the way, if you’re in the area and want to do a meet-up for any of the tastings, let me know!
It sounds like the begining of a joke, which could as easily have begun: a Priest and a Locavore walk into a winery…
Anyway, we did (walk into a winery); McLaughlin Vineyards. It was Saturday afternoon and we’d spent the day Locavoring around New Haven. On the way home, we decided to stop into our neighborhood winery to replenish our Vista Reposa.
McLaughlin also sells eggs from Rough Cut Ranch, their neighbor. These are the most beautiful eggs I have ever seen. I wish I had a better camera to do them justice.
At McLaughlin’s, Dee Dee’s domain is the tastings and Frank (Francis) runs the retail store, among other things. We all got to talking about, what else, local food (and drink) and where you could get local honey. I told them that Holbrook’s carries honey and the Stuart’s carry honey. Frank wanted really local honey. I said that Cherry Grove Farm in Newtown has their own organic honey. And so the conversation continued.
As a matter of interest, Frank told me about this 93-year-old locavore in Newtown who keeps a Web site reporting on local foods and farms. I was intrigued–a kindred spirit, and a neighbor no less. He was impressed that this old biddy could still get around! I gave him my e-mail address so he could send me the link. He went on to talk about her Thanksgiving dinner of local foods and how she served McLaughlin wine. “So did I,” I told him. He continued, saying that she felt bad that the Tom turkey wasn’t local, but was a Butterball. The way he said it, got me thinking… That sure sounds like my Thanksgiving! “Are you sure she’s 93,” I asked? He was sure. He’d checked the profile at her blog and it said she was 93.
“Wait,” I said, “it’s me!” But I’m not 93. When I created my blogger.com account, I had refused to enter my year of birth and the original version inserted a year from the turn of the century (the other one). I recalled a friend making a joke about it several months ago. It turns out that the upgraded version allows you to leave it blank without making a wild guess. So, I’ve fixed it. I am sorry if anyone felt misled. Kind of comical, though…
So, while I am old by some standards, I’m young by others. I do have gray hair. (I might dye it if they start to grow hair color in my 100 miles.) If you really want to know how old I am, when I was a kid:
– We had to get up to change television channels (though we did have TV, even color, but only seven channels).
– Water wasn’t bottled.
– Coffee only came in one flavor: coffee.
– People smoked everywhere: in the grocery store (in every store for that matter), on buses, trains, and, airplanes, even in the doctor’s office. Really. (It was legal back then.)
– Cars only had AM radio and you actually got exercise opening and closing the windows.
– Soda did not have high fructose corn syrup.
– Margarine was thought to be good for you and butter was unhealthy.
– Jack LaLane was the only one working out on TV. Julia Child and Graham Kerr were the only ones cooking on TV.
I could go on–but you get the idea. Suffice it to say, I was too young for the first Woodstock and too old for the second.
Anyway, I hope you’re here for the local food information and not just marveling that an old lady can drive from farm to farm. If it’s any consolation, I’ve been told that I do drive like an old lady.
Planting, harvesting, and sharing information about local food
