Wine a Little

There's so many good wine puns that I figured I'd title this post with one...cause wine not? ...See what I did there? That was another pun and you didn't even see it coming. Anyway, last weekend I got to do one of my most favorite things in Arizona (as evidenced by this post and this post) and head down south to go wine tasting. It was the 36th Annual Blessing of the Vines Festival and my mother-in-law, a family friend, and I were ready for wine, and vines, and festivals. So that's what we did - we wined, and vined, and festivaled. I made up all of those words but you get the idea.

The day looked mostly like this:

The end.

I'm kidding, that's not the end. And that's not really what I did all day either...they wouldn't let me open the thing so I was forced to drink out of my souvenir glass all day. If I was paying attention during the wine tour when they were explaining how they make the wine I would know what the name of "the thing" is, but all that science just goes right over my head. I just like wine. 

We partook (I think I just made that word up too) in all the festival activities at Sonoita Vineyards including food and wine pairings, wine tastings, BBQ pulled pork sandwiches for lunch, and the actual blessing of the vines. Except it was so violently windy on Saturday that they had to do the blessing inside, which you can imagine was cramped. And you can probably imagine lots of people in one small space. But you probably can't imagine my mother-in-law being "shh'd" by some grumpy old lady next to her. Literally, this woman says "SHH! I'm trying to hear." Clearly homegirl needed some more wine. 

After we exhausted all the free wine we could at Sonoita we made our way to the next stop, which is my personal favorite, the Village of Elgin Winery.

Not only do they have the best wines (in my personal opinion), but I just love the atmosphere. The area in southern Arizona where all the wineries are is very rural, so it gives each place a real down-to-earth, unique, quaint feel, and Elgin is no exception. Also, did I mention their wines are fantastic?

Sherri put me to shame with her studious wine tasting approach - recording her results and hypothesizing her next tasting. I'm just like, "I'll try that one! Mmm yum! Now I'll try that one! Mmm so good!" and so on and so forth. It's like she's a professional wine taster or something. I need to step up my game.

After Elgin we stopped at a couple other wineries, but not before we sat in the car and ate a bag (or two) of Cheetos cause you know...so. much. wine. Also, Cheetos go well with wine, no? That should be a food pairing sample at the next festival. You know what other realization I had after a day of wine tasting? The descriptions of each wine (i.e. what they taste like) call for so many "that's what she said" jokes. Like, so many. Including but not limited to: 

"Deep and powerful in the mouth, with full flavor expression through the mid-palate and finish." Wait, what? We're tasting wine right?? 

"Fleshy, sexy wine." Hold on, there's flesh in this wine?? 

"...Mouth-filling with some textural sweetness." Alright that's it, I'm uncomfortable.

I didn't let a couple of graphic descriptions ruin my wine tasting though. I just tried to think about like, grapes and stuff. You know, all the stuff I thought would normally describe wine.

We didn't get back to the Valley until about 8pm, which means we literally had an entire day full of drinking wine. And that's a good day if you ask me.

Weekend in the Vineyards

*Caution: picture overload ahead*

If I told you last weekend was pretty fun...it'd be an understatement.

It involved one of my best friends Tyah, from Humble Haro Abode...and wine.

So if this were a math equation it might look something like this:

Tyah+Carissa+wine=fun.

We drove down to southern Arizona for the Sonoita Wine Festival and the blessing of the vines.

We looooove Sonoita and all the wineries in the area! We've been making our way down there most every spring or summer since 2010.

Check out last summer's visit HERE.

Sidenote: this was on the stall in one of the bathrooms...I deemed it worth taking a picture of.

As always, we started out in the main house, enjoyed some wine tasting, some wine pairings, and some serious dodging of creepy, drunk, old men that wanted to take a picture with anything that walked and had long hair...although that part wasn't really enjoyable as much as it was annoying.

Man with grey hair and wrinkles...and chaps and spurs and cowboy boots, comes up to us and says, 

"look at you drinking wine. How old are you anyway?"

I told him I was forty.

But I don't think he believed me considering he rolled his eyes at me and told me I was funny.

He invited us to stay for dinner but we told him our husband's probably wouldn't be down for that. 

And on we went. 

We had wine to taste, and food to eat. I can't have creepy old men messing that up.

#aintnobodygottimeforthat

When it came time for the blessing of the vines we had a bit of a church service out front.

Local church leaders read a series of prayers, they sprinkled holy water on the vines, and prayed for the wine drinkers....and all God's people said Amen!

 

During festival weekends they offer wagon rides up into the vineyards and you can get the 411 on the land, the vines, the grapes, the history...and more wine. 

And Tyah and I aren't ones to pass up more wine.

So we said giddy up!

We finished at the main house with some more food and wine pairings and a stroll through 

the barrel room.

And on we went to our next, and favorite spot!

I think Tyah and I both agree, they have the BEST wines!

...that being said...we bought a lot of wine to take home with us.

I don't really wanna talk about it.

Before we left we made sure to fit in a photo sesh.

And since our husband's weren't with us this year, that means we could take as many pictures as we want, for as long as we want, without having to listen to them complain about it.

That's right, no wambulance this year.

No wamburgers or french cries either.

Just us, the camera, and the self-timer button.

And what do you do when you have unlimited picture taking time??

...You rearrange the signage that's directing traffic so you can get the perfect picture.

Don't get all crazy, if vehicles drove by...we pointed in the general direction.  

At the last winery, 2 things happened:

1.) We tasted more wine.

2.) We signed their guestbook...like so:

See, I'm an Arizona State Sundevil and Tyah is a University of Arizona Wildcat.

Normally, those two species don't really hang out.

BUT I forgave Tyah many years ago for becoming a wildcat and she's tolerated me all this time for being a sundevil.

So you know, we make it work.

And since we're both really bad at talking shiz, our smack-talk is usually something like,

"Go ASU!"

"OMG yeah right...go Uof A!"

"No pitty for the kitty!"

"Seriously, Rissa...A-S-Who?"

"That was a good one Tyah."

"Yours too Rissa."

...and then we're on with our day.

Saturday night we ended the day with dinner at Olive Garden.
Cause I'm pretty sure Olive Garden is a good way to end your day.

Then Sunday we worked on homework all day.
I know, we went from being really really fun on Saturday, to really really lame on Sunday.
#gradstudent probs
It's whatevs though.
We be gettin' smart.

Until Tyah comes back to visit me in the coming years, this will probably be our last wine festival together, as she and her husband will be stationed somewhere with the Marine's this fall.
Speaking of which...I've got a bone to pick with him.

Even so, I'd say we went out with a bang!

Anniversary Vacay Part II

Remember that one time I started telling you about our anniversary vacation and never finished?

Let's finish, shall we?

Check out part I HERE

So after Carlsbad we drove a few hours to Las Cruces where the concert was. But before we went to the show Saturday night, we first visited the White Sands National Monument.

What is the White Sands National Monument you might ask?...

...I took that from their website so I didn't have to try and explain it.

When I told Nate about it at first he's like, "wait, what is it?"

and I was like,

"I dunno, white gypsies used to live there or something."

So you know, I'm really good at describing things.

Anyway, you can either drive through the park, walk through the park, or for those of us that are indecisive you can do a little bit of both and follow the signs that say "park your car here and walk around a little bit." ...or something like that. 

So we did.

Kinda looks like the beach right?!

It was pretty cool, and pretty vast. 

There were picnic tables where you could sit and eat lunch, and some families were even sliding down the dunes in those disc thingy's you usually see in the snow. 

BUT, since we had places to go and people to see (namely George Strait), 

we didn't make a day out of it.

Instead, we headed back to the hotel, freshened up a bit, had dinner, and headed out to New Mexico State University to see the king of country music!

Martina McBride opened up for George, which honestly, I was pretty indifferent about. I really liked her older stuff, but haven't really been into her for the past few years. 

BUT...I think I changed my mind.

She. Is. Amazeballs.

Her voice is amazing live...girlfriend's got some serious pipes.

When George Strait finally came on...it was even more amazeballs.

He walked out onto his stage with nothing but a spotlight. 

No fancy entrance, no pyrotechnics...just George.

And everybody went nuts!

I will say, it was different than any other concert I've been to. Being in the same place, and watching this person that has had so much success over such a long period of time - there's this respect in the air, if you will, that I've not sensed at any other show I've been to.
Everyone knows we're watching a legend.
And every time he came to your corner of the stage, you stood on your feet.
Kinda like in a courtroom, when the judge walks into the room and the bailiff  says, "all rise."
When George walks in...you rise.

He didn't play my favorite song, "Run," but I suppose I can't really blame him.
When you have 12308547303885763 hit songs and you've been playing for 30 years, I guess there comes a point when you can't fit them all into your shows anymore.
However, he did play Nate's favorite, "Amarillo by Morning"...

He definitely put on an awesome show and it was totally worth the drive out to New Mexico.
There were no crazy props, no costume changes, no smoke, no lasers, no distractions.
Just George and his guitar.
Just the way I like it.