First allow me to say that in our travels this weekend, we came upon two different very bad wrecks. Please be careful out there, and please drink responsibly. Cypress Bend Vineyards in Wagram is a good 3+ hour drive for us, though we certainly enjoyed the drive.
Dan and Tina Smith officially opened the Winery in 2005. Lisa graciously poured our tasting. She explained that the vineyard property has been in Dan's family since the early 1800's. originally over one thousand acres, still eight hundred or so remain in the family. The Lumber River runs along the property, which has been passed down through generations of descendants. Growing Carlos, Noble, and Magnolia on site, only pure cane sugar is used to sweeten their wines. Winemaker, Nadia Hetzel, studied the craft in Germany. Their new River Series of wines are named for John Charles White, poet and ancestor of the matriarch White family. The winery has a patio for sitting outside and host events throughout the year. We took a bottle of the Reminiscence home with us.
Utilizing the VinoWine app, was obvious we'd never make it Little River before they closed, so we regrouped and headed to nearby LockLear Vineyard and Winery. This is one of those "hobby" wineries. Don't let that prevent you from stopping in and visiting with Charlie Locklear. The vineyard has been planted since 2006 and the winery open about seven years. The winery serves Carlos and Noble in both semi-dry and semi-sweet along with a few fruit wines. The highlight though, was the Christmas in a Bottle. This is a mulled spice wine, already bottled. This ten dollar bottle of wine was quiet good, and certainly unique, so we took a bottle home with us.
Leaving Locklear and after a bite to eat at some local diner, we made the decision to head to Concord as we knew Cabo Winery was open until 8pm on Friday and Saturday nights. Cabo is downtown Concord, and makes some really good and unique fruit forward wines. We sat at a table looking out onto Main Street and enjoyed a bottle of Bless Your Heart. Bless Your Heart is a Sauv Blanc with a zesty lime note and strong hints of coconut. Some of our other favorites are Hissy Fit, a strawberry Riesling, Honey Hush, a coffee port style, and Adams Apple, a Gewurtraminer with intense flavor note of green apple.
Sunday I was on a mission. We headed over to one of our favorites, Baker Buffalo Creek Vineyard and Winery, just outside of Shelby, in Fallston, N.C. We have come to know C.D. and Anne at Baker Buffalo Creek pretty good over the past few years, and it is always great to catch up. I was there for one reason though, to get a bottle of the newly released Cab Sauv aged in bourbon barrels for 4 months. I'll have a review of this wine in the near future. C.D. had on a previous visit, before the wine was bottled, allowed us to taste it right out of the barrel. It has just the right note of bourbon on the finish. Each bottle sells for $24, though with supply limited, I highly recommend picking up a bottle as quickly as possible.
Couldn't help picture a bottle once I got home.
C.D. Baker "Aged in Bourbon Barrels" Cabernet Sauvignon 2015
Have always loved this old gas pump on the property at Baker Buffalo Creek. A reminder that this was once a working dairy farm.
Love sitting outside relaxing with a bottle of wine. During the cooler months the fire pit is always lit and quite warm and cozy.
Happy Weekend Wining!
Don't forget to check Groupon for winery tasting and tour deals.
Dennis
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As always we had a lot of fun this past weekend. The pictures on the bottles of the River Series at Cypress Bend are all personal family pictures which I find especially intriguing. Sunburnt Boys is a picture of Dan and some of his buddies from a summer when they canoed down the Lumber River. A Sweetheart Dream is a picture of Tina and the one on Reminiscence is a picture of the mural that is in the tasting room. The other thing that I found different and interesting is that all the wine bottles has a bar graph on the bar indicting the sweet or dryness of it.
ReplyDeleteThe dog at Locklear liked me a tad to much and I ended up with some scratches but sweet Flower was not trying to be ugly, she just wanted more loving. Here are a few shots I took here.
I hate that I can't add my pictures in the comments section, but Dennis' are all very good.
The wines at Cabo are very unique and we love so many of them. Since Dennis likes to stage our bottles for pictures when we open one, I think we need to invest in one of those cute frogs!
Until next week my friends, remember to always rescue wine that is trapped in bottles!