My dearest of friends Carol is getting herself hitched at the end of this month, and to celebrate her coming nuptials and still maintain an adult demeanor she and her maid-of-honor put together a wine tasting tour to take the place of a traditional party till you puke and/or pass out in a booze fueled, penis cake, suck-4-a-buck, "IM GETTING MARRIED!" screaming slur of a bachelorette party. Instead she was going the classy route. But worry not, with me on board there was bound to be a tiny bit of debauchery, after all - I have a reputation to uphold!
I was pretty excited by Carol's choice to class it up because it fit nicely into my 30/30/30 challenge since I had never been on a wine tour before. Being the jug-o-wine connoisseur that I am I knew I was in for a real treat!
The day started off early, but not to early for drinking! We meet at Carol's place around 9:30am and the real life version of Hank from King of the Hill arrived which a huge econovan. There was a lot of chatter about some girls being car sick so Carol and I took the stern of this boat on wheels, five rows back!
Hank the tour guide took us to three wineries in the Newberg area, one more quaint than the next. We had classy sip after sip of delicious and in some cases pretty expensive wines (note - to me "expensive wine" equals more than $10 before my safeway club card discount). The country side beautiful and the company fantastic. We stopped for lunch in Dundee before continuing on to two more wineries. We also had our own winery on wheels as Carol, the ever so ready for any situation type gal she is, had loaded the van with thermoses of wines and booze along with a cooler filled with cheeses, salamis, and veggies with dip, a box of doughnuts, and a pack full of chips, crackers, bread and other delicious snacks. The afternoon came to a close at Carol's house after a delightful game of "Circle of Friends", drinking straight from the bottle of a nice chardonnay.
A cooking tip from Carol's sack of snacks -
When making a refreshing dip for your veggie tray substitute low fat cottage cheese and sour cream for mayo to make it waistline friendly. To remove the curds from the cottage cheese and make it smoother simply add a 1/4 cup of boiling hot water per 1 cup of cottage cheese to your food processor. Don't worry, it doesn't make it too thin for dipping!
Wine Tours Northwest offers up a great way to experience a variety of vineyards in one afternoon. Mike, the owner and our Hank for the day, was a sweetheart of a man that probably would have let us get away with anything! He was extremely knowledgeable and friendly and a true gem among tour guides. My only complaint would be the cost of the tour was a bit high. Not for what we got which was 5 wineries, lunch, gratuity for the day was fully included and door to door pick up & drop off, but I mean more in that I am a cheap skate and will continue to buy my jug-o-wine at Safeway and do not see myself being a fancy hoity toity winey anytime soon. A wino - maybe, but not a winey! LOL
So, if your looking for a great and safe way to celebrate with class with a group of your closest pals, give Hank a call and setup a tour of some of the most gorgeous places found in our very own back yard!
Special thanks to Carol - Congratulations my sweet friend, I look forward to your wedding, and am so thankful you let me join you for the celebrations!
One of the many wineries we visited that day, I believe this was the second.
The bride-to-be Carol and I sitting in the back of the bus!
The inter workings of the wineries - this was at Dobbs vinyards
Things got a little rowdy at the two wineries following lunch, which is probably why they were both in the warehouse/cellar areas.. to keep the winos away from the wineys!
CLICK HERE TO GO TO DAY 8
1 comment:
love your description of the traditional bachelorette party... keepin it real!
props to Carol... GREAT idea!
Post a Comment