Wednesday, March 2, 2011

The winery

So we crashed this nice North Carolina Mom's Conference.

I mean, not really. It wasn't like they were excluding moms from outside North Carolina, or even peopole who weren't moms at all, its just that there were like four of us who weren't from that fine coastal state. So while the rest of the lovely group could sit in a conference room 50 yards from the Atlantic and focus on social media tools and making your blog more "findable" or something, those of us from the far north found ourselves going, "OOOH. OCEAN." and "Ohmigod was that the sun?!?"

It was hard to focus.

I mean, we tried. We watched videos presented by the Brunswick County Tourism Development Authority and tasted healthy yummy snacks served up by Eat. Think. Smile. We learned the technical ins and outs of how to make your blog better, as presented by Lisa of A Daily Pinch, and later, how to better organize your time online as presented by Molly of GO MOM!

But we squeezed in between those things every bit of North Carolina we could.

When Melissa won wine tasting passes for the Silver Coast Winery? Uh, yes please.

And so we ditched the afternoon session (sorry, lovely conference organizers) and took a cab to check it out.

This is what we pulled up to find:

in case you want to rock and drink

How completely quaint and southern is that?

Now, learning more about wine was one of the items I listed in my Non-Life List Life List, simply because I knew nothing about it. I knew that I liked pinot grigio and um, that was just about it. I know quite a bit about beer, being from Milwaukee and having two brothers who work in that business and all, and find that I'm more apt to order a beer because I can "decipher" the menu. I know kinda what a lager will taste like, or a porter or an ale, and am more likely to try something by an unknown brewer because I know that what I order won't be completely foreign.

So not only was this a fun way to spend a few hours, it was like, educational, and stuff.

We even got our very own personalized tour!

award winning
Look at all those award winners!

grape smushing machine
Grape smushing machines

tanks
Tanks

wine-making tools
Wine making tools

I learned that the reason red wine is dryer is because the grapes, once smushed, are left to sit in their smushed state with the skins on for a longer period of time. (And white merlot, which used to seem such an ironic enigma to me, is actually made with the same grapes as red merlot, only it sits in its smushed grapiness for less time, thus soaking up less of the red color from the skins and less dry-ness. I is smert now about wine.)

And I learned that out of the 10 wines we tried there was only one to which I gave an "eh" rating. "Eh" meaning it was one of the reds and while I'm not typically a red drinker, per se, it was still pretty darned good.

wine tasting
Waiting our turn

wine tasting
Tasting

label
All their labels are designed by local artists - loved this one!

red & white
red & white

Everyone we met at the winery was extremely nice and it was a wonderful way to spend a few hours on a Saturday afternoon.

I think I may need to order a case some of their wine.

Over the next few days I'll be sharing more of my North Carolina photos and stories with you. Cuz, um, its cold here and I'm sick of snow. If you'd like to view my entire set (WARNING: there are a CRAP TON of photos) click here.

I'd also like to thank the Ocean Isle Inn and all the conference sponsors for putting together such an awesome conference!

2 comments:

melissa said...

it was SUCH a fun day!! i need to order a case..er..well yeah...

Chele said...

I'm so glad you girls made time to go, even if you missed some of the sessions. Silver Coast Winery is one of my favorite places here. :)