Wining and Dining

Once again, I was too tired to post anything last night about yesterday's adventure. I think all the wine yesterday put me to sleep. And no Mom, I was not driving drunk, or even buzzed--I would never put Brother Dear or myself in that kind of danger (that was my disclaimer).

Yesterday was Chinese Buffet for lunch. It was very good, I have to say, and there was quite a selection. It's good to know that there is tasty Chinese to be had here. BD says that other than Swedish and Mexican, you can get any other kind of food here and it will be good. The only Swedish to be had is Glogg wine (already spiced), the cracker bread that comes in large rounds (I don't know how to spell the Swedish term), cheese, and only a couple of canned and jarred fish things that I would classify as "fake Swedish." Poor BD; I know he likes the Swedish stuff. I told him I would send him a care package. If I were to actually move here, I would have to ask my parents to do the same for me.

The tasting room at Americana Winery

After lunch, we headed out of town for wine tasting on what is known as the Cayuga Wine Trail. There are quite a few wineries along the Cayuga Lake, one of the finger lakes in this area (BD says there are about 5 finger lakes all together). BD and one of the people at a winery we went to said that the specialty of the area are white wines and sweet wines, and BD says they are well-known for both. Unfortunately, everything is about Napa Valley when it comes to wines back home, so I haven't had the pleasure of sampling wines from this region yet. Well, prior to yesterday anyway.

It was quite a different experience from Napa. In Napa, there are fields upon fields of vinyards as far as the eye can see and there is no question that you're in wine country. To make it even more apparent, the wineries have sometimes very lavish entrances with granite stones, fountains, flowers, and really big signs proclaiming that they are there. They're also all on the main highways. Here, you sometimes forget you're actually in wine country. There are some fields of vinyards you can see from the road, but they are interrupted by large swaths of forested areas, and they are smaller in size than their Napa counterparts. A lot of the vinyards are away from the roads and you don't even see them. Also, some of the vinyards aren't even visible from the main road and the only thing to guide you is a small sign that can be easy to miss if you're not watching for it. It's like you have to be in the super-secret cool kids' club to know where all the good spots are, or at least know a local.

The first winery we went to was the Americana Winery. It is one of those not visible from the road, and we almost missed it. When we turned off the main road, we actually passed some private homes before getting to it (how cool to live next to a winery!). It was very cute and charming, and there were a couple of dogs (possibly chocolate labs) running around. Inside, we were greeted by a very warm lady who assisted us with some wine tasting. (By the way, every place we went to only charged $2-$3 for anywhere from 5-8 wines. Not bad at all!) I got to taste some wonderful wines of the region and ended up leaving with 2 bottles.

Buttonwood Grove Winery 

The other three wineries we stopped at seemed to follow suit. We tasted some excellent table wines, and there were a couple that were so sweet and had so much residual sugar that you couldn't taste the alcohol at all. I told BD that he may have to go back to some of them and get a bottle of those and ship it to me. I had to keep remembering that I have to take everything I buy back home--otherwise I would have gotten quite a few more bottles. The third winery we stopped at, Buttonwood Grove, was set back from the road towards the edge of a large field. There was a pond with an arbor across the field from the tasting room, and an enclosure on the other side of the drive with two goats and a Scottish highland cow (I think that's her species) named Melody. You can buy food in the tasting room to feed them, which we did. It was a beautiful spot with lots of birds chirping and fluttering around. It also had a beautiful view of the lake, and would be a perfect place for a picnic lunch.

The goat that came to eat the treats we had at Buttonwood Grove.

Melody, the Scottish highland cow

The front of the Antlers restaurant

We finally got back to Ithaca when the afternoon was almost over. We spent some time relaxing at the apartment before going to a place called Antlers for dinner. Thursday is Lobster Night, where they have a good deal on Maine lobster--a whole lobster for $16. It was soooooo good. Lobster is actually not that unhealthy, it's the butter that goes with it that adds about a million calories and tons of fat. Oh well, it was really good. I finished the meal with some creme brulee. When we left, we could hear crickets and frogs in the trees surrounding the restaurant parking lot. I was ready to call it a night.

Today, my last day here, will be fairly low-key. We'll be hopefully going to the Science Center and cooking dinner at home. I leave bright and early tomorrow.