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 Wrap-Up - Cause I Can't Think of a More Creative Title

It's been a while eh? For some reason I just didn't have the blogging bug last week. It's not like I was super busy or anything like that...I just didn't have anything to write about.

Actually, I take that back - I had a lot to write about, I was just too lazy to actually put pen to paper (er, fingers to keyboard?) and write. But thanks to this lovely Sunday night and this glass (or two-ish) of Gerwurztraminer (it's a real word...and a real wine) I suddenly have things to say.

Things like: what I did this weekend. AND the good news is that my weekend isn't even really over yet. Thank you President's Day! It's holidays like this where I luuuuuurve working for the government.

Last week I was feeling like a terrible dog mom cause the dogs hadn't had anything fun to do, so I suggested we go up north and take the dogs, and walk around and hang out. Cause that's what you do when the weather is perfect and you're a terrible dog mom. It's an interesting combination isn't it?

So we drove a couple hours northward (northbound?) and stopped first at Canyon Creek. 

 As soon as we made it past the two families at the very tip of the creek, the leashes were off and so were the labs!

Maycee was in the zone all day...

My favorite part of wanting to go up north for the day, is that it's kind of like ordering off a menu. I tell my husband, "Nate, I wanna take the dogs up north for the day; do you know where we could go?" And he replies with, "Yeah, it just depends on what roads are open." Once we find out what roads are open, then there's a plethora of options, 

"Well do you want a lake, or a stream? 

A hike or just an easy walk? 

Do you want to see the Fish Hatchery?"

I could show you where the rope swing is, do you want to see the rope swing?"

That Nathan, he's full of options.

After Canyon Creek we cruised on over to the next spot where we ate lunch (i.e. a couple of Lunchables; I don't care how old you are, those things are delicous) and yes, he showed me the rope swing. Also, I picked up this wine on our way out of town...I mean, I couldn't not buy it right?

Lower Canyon Creek was up after lunch, and since there were fisherman around we couldn't let the dogs off the leash...cause we're responsible dog owners like that.

On our way home we (and when I say we, I really mean just Nate) spotted a doe not far from the road...see if you can find her:

That natural camouflage is something else isn't it?? 

Maycee was so freakin' pooped on the way home she didn't even care that Gunther straight up laid right on top of her. She didn't even try to move.

Sunday was nothing worth taking pictures of; no one wants to see pictures of laundry, errands, or me sitting at a computer blogging my little heart out. Although we did try out a new brunch place this morning and I had some delicious eggs benedict. People would definitely want to see pictures of eggs benedict. I don't have any though, so you'll have to go elsewhere for that. I don't mess around when there's a plate of eggs benedict in front of me. 

And on that note, I'm gonna go finish this long weekend with who knows what. Definitely not any more Gerwurztraminer, that stuff is long gone. All the more reason to end this blog post.

Happy Monday, and happy (happy?) President's Day!