Wine, Wine, Wine

Check out the wine in the picture. Though Wendy and I are not wine drinkers, we do have family members who are definitely wine connoisseurs. So we bought some, having been in New York wine country this past weekend. The Millenium pictured is a champagne, bought to celebrate mine and Wendy’s 29th anniversary this past Sunday.

My wife Wendy and my youngest son Scott traveled this past weekend to Ithaca, New York, so Scott could check out Cornell University, where he is supposed to do his Master’s work next fall. Since Ithaca is in the heart of the wine-producing area there in New York, we thought we should check out some wineries as well.

We toured the Pleasant Valley Wine Company which at one time bottled the Great Western brand of champagne. It’s not bottled there anymore and I had the feeling this winery has seen much better times. They had a large parking area for tourists and a wonderful visitor’s center but the tour comprised the three of us and the tour guide. And when we finished our tour, tasting and purchases, there was not another tourist in there.

But I learned lots. Like Dom Perignon invented champagne. That working in a wine cellar, according to our tour guide, was as dangerous as working in a mine because of exploding bottles. That during Prohibition, the winery stayed in business by selling grape juice with specific instructions to buyers on how NOT to let the grape juice turn into wine. Like “do not add yeast to this product or else . . . “ (with a “wink, wink”). That you can mix different wines to get a unique flavor, like pouring a snifter of Chocolate Lab with Blackberry Merlot. Chocolate wine? Yes, they do make it.

Later, we drove along Seneca Lake—one of the so-called Finger Lakes—where we must have passed over a dozen wineries and vintners. Many groups travel this so-called “wine trail”, stopping at one or more small estates to sample the offerings.

At Hazlitt Vineyards, one of the oldest having been established in 1852, I ran into a party of young women clustered around a tasting bar. From the veil worn by the lady who appeared to be the center of attention with them, I gathered this was a bachelorette party. They were an unusually happy bunch of women but I was most impressed when they occasionally burst into song, which they did more than once.

They broke into their own version of the old Dixie Cups classic, “Chapel of Love” featuring what sounded like the same three-part harmony like in the original. Perfectly in tune. A flawless performance. We heard a capella groups at the Ithaca Festival later who did not sing as strongly or with such gusto.

Wendy thought that perhaps this was a group of women who sang together in the choir. Perhaps. Just so long as it wasn’t in the church choir. There would be something ironic about a group of church ladies celebrating an impending nuptial by dousing themselves at the local winery.