Finding Common Ground Over A Glass

The differences between our members at our small Episcopal church has me thinking a lot lately. Our small church is extremely active in our community, and despite our many differences we function much like a large family.

It has dawned on me, our experiences at local wineries have likewise bought us closer to so many people of differing walks of life. You see over a glass of wine, we tend to find our similarities much more than our differences.

We met two of our very best friends at a North Carolina winery. Our partners in wine on many of our weekend winery escapades. Its easy to notice that we are very different from Will and Pam, yet every time we're together we always have the greatest of fun times. We love those guys! 

At our favorite local wineries, it's often many of the same locals hanging out. We have become friends with so many....and friendly acquaintances with others.

Some wineries will have local musicians playing and often small snacks available to enhance your experience.

The winery owners get to know their regulars, and often greet them with hugs. You see, most local wineries are small family owned businesses. They really appreciate their regular customers.

Not to mention the small batch craft wine!

All of this leads to a comfortable environment where people tend leave their differences at the door. A place where we all seem to be a little more tolerant, a little more open-minded, a little less demanding to get our own way. Where people naturally want to be social, naturally want to include and not exclude.

Just this past weekend we were visiting a favorite North Carolina winery and two young women were sitting near us by the fireplace. We struck up a conversation regarding the wine and food available and our conversations evolved including them as we all laughed the time away. 

We likewise experience this social phenomenon in our local wine bar, and at weddings, but yet not in our local coffee shop, or Wal-Mart! Our first notion is to lay it all on the wine. It must be the wine. Right?

John 2:1-11 - On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. When the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus said to him, "They have no wine." And Jesus said to her, "Woman, what concern of is that to you and to me? My hour is yet to come." His mother said to the servants, "Do whatever he tells you." Now standing there were six stone water jars for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. Jesus said to them, "Fill the jars with water." And they filled them up to the brim. He said to them, "Now draw some out, and take it to the chief steward." So they took it. When the steward tasted the water that had become wine, and did not know from where it came from ( though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the steward called the bridegroom and said to him, "Everyone serves the good wine first, and then the inferior wine after the guest have become drunk.But you have kept the good wine until now." Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana if Galilee, and revealed his glory, and his disciples believed in him. 

I'll speak to my interpretations of the above.

1. It's a wedding, this is a celebration of life.

2. Weddings are not rare, and at these weddings the people celebrate by drinking.

3. Jesus does NOT condemn the celebration of this wedding.

4. Though not His responsibility to do so, Jesus provides for the celebration.

The environment at your local winery, we believe often tends to mimic that of a wedding reception. There is wine, music, and happy smiling faces. The wine is only one factor of the whole environment. It's a celebration of life of which in turn leads us to fellowship.

Don't just take our word for it. Give our theory a try. Find your local winery on the The VinoWine App and join in on the celebration of life! 

2018 Weekend 5

So Dennis and had a long and much needed weekend in Savannah. We left Friday morning and headed south. We first stopped at the Angel Oak Tree in Charleston. I have never seen a tree so huge and beautiful.

We decided to go to Deep Waters Vineyard in Charleston and it's a lovely place. Most of the wines are muscadine or a muscadine blend. The blends are muscadine with CA imported grapes. They use two types of muscadine that we had not heard of before, the Tara and the Ison. They have all sorts of animals on the property. Lots of chickens, roosters, ducks, pigs, a goat and bunnies. The goat (who's name I have forgotten) will climb up a spiral staircase in his enclosure to get you to put some food in a little bowl that is attached to a pulley and you send it up to him & he'll eat out of the bowl. We brought a bottle of their Magnolia, just the name of the wine not the varietal of muscadine home with us. This wine is actually made from the Carols grape.

Much to our surprise the Firefly Distillery is on the same property as the winery. So more fun there! We brought some of the Coconut Cake Liquor home. Our other favorite was the Apple Pie moonshine.

We left and headed on down to Savannah. Our hotel was amazing! We had a river view and got to see all sorts of HUGE cargo ships. They have wine and cheese every evening so that was always our appetizers before dinner. Friday night we went to B. Matthews on Bay Street for dinner and then over to Savannah Smiles for dueling pianos. To say that Savannah Smiles was not quite what we were expecting would be a vast understatement. I've been to a few dueling piano shows before but this one was very different. Now, just because I say it was different does not mean it was bad or that we didn't have a good time because we did. It had just been quite the while since either one of us had a hand stamp. LOL! I had also not been to one that the players changed out periodically. There were 4 different pianists and one drummer who played on select songs. We experienced our first bicycle taxi to and from the bar and it had not been SO cold, it would've been a lot of fun. Both of the "drivers" were super friendly. We also brought a bottle of the Southern Duck White home.

Saturday morning after an amazing breakfast at the hotel, we headed out to explore a bit. Again.... if it had not been so cold it would have been terrific! We both ended up buying ear muffs of sorts. The wind was brutal. I had looked at the forecast before we went and thought it would be great weather for Saturday. Not realizing there would be wind. Let me tell you, the wind coming straight off the river is COLD! But as always, we made the best of it. We then headed to Butterducks Winery. They us a combination of NC and California grapes. We had stopped there on our way home from our honeymoon and wanted to revisit. Since the winery is about 30 minutes from Savannah, it was much warmer and less windy. We had a nice time there and met some fun ladies who were enjoying a mommy's day out. Enjoyed a glass each of their White Merlot and cheese and crackers.

Headed back to the hotel to get ready for dinner. We went over to Tybee Island to go to the Crab Shack. SOOOO good! I had the low country boil and Dennis had the crab cakes. Both of us were STUFFED! Headed back to the hotel to get ready for our ghost tour. We decided to do The Hearse Ghost Tour because it was simply to cold to do one of the walking ones. Each hearse holds 8 people so we met some fun people. Our tour guide was hysterical! But one note. If you ever do this tour, and choose to sit in the very front, don't sit on the left side of the hearse. Sit on the right. EVERYTHING is on the right.

After another great breakfast on Sunday, sadly we had to leave. There is so much to do in Savannah that I'm not sure even a week would be long enough to do everything. Upon checking out of the hotel., we drove around the city one more time and then headed to Hilton Head to go to Island Winery. (We went to both of these SC wineries because a) they weren't too far out of the way and b) we needed to get them the SC Wine competition information). We found one antique store as we didn't want to arrive exactly at noon when they opened. Between the two of us we got to taste all of their wines. They have some really nice varieties. We each enjoyed a glass and a cheese tray. We met a very lovely lady who was headed to Florida for the month.

Sadly, our fun long weekend had to end and we had to head home. Sorry for the picture overload on this one, I just had to post them all!

More fun to come next week!

#DiscoverSCWines

2018 Weekends 2 & 3

We got sort of a late start Saturday (1/13) due to some errands we had to take care of before we could go. We met some dear friends, Pam & Will, at Misty Creek Vineyard in Mocksville, NC. We were greeted by Bear and Merl (Barry said someone else named him for them, it's Merl as in Merlot) when we arrived, as well as the owner, Barry, his lovely wife and his mother. Since it had been a while since we had been there and Pam & Will had not been there, Dennis & I did the tasting with them. They have several lovely wines. Our favorite is still the 2008 Chambourcin. The 4 of us split a bottle of the Syrah and also the Traminette. We brought a bottle of the Misty Rose, Syrah and the Chambourcin home. We enjoyed a hour or so hanging out in front of the fire with Pam & Will and also have nice conversations with Barry. We left there and headed to dinner at Port City Club in Cornelius. Man was the food good! We look forward to going back in the spring so we can enjoy the outside seating by the lake.

Merl

Will & Bear

Sunday (1/14) we went to Lake James Cellars. For Dennis & I this place is the best of both worlds! It's a winery but is also and antique store. So you can do a tasting, figure out what your favorite wine was and then browse in the antique store with your glass of wine. We brought a bottle of the Fonta Flora Cranberry Blush home. 

After leaving Lake James, we headed to Wood Mill Winery. This winery is primarily muscadine, but they also have some fruit wines. They have semi-dry, semi-sweet and sweet variations of the majority of their wines. This winery is a beautiful location for events. They have a lovely outside space (which we did not get to enjoy as it was WAY to COLD!) and their inside space is also great and has terrific views. We brought a couple of bottle home from here as well. We got a chance to speak with the owner/wine maker Larry. The young lady who handled our tasting was also very sweet and quite knowledgeable. 

This past Saturday (1/20) we met some fellow bloggers and friends at Cats Paw Winery in Rock Hill. Dennis and I have been here a few times before and it's always such fun. You have a complimentary never ending bowl of popcorn to enjoy with your tasting and afterwards as well as bottled water. For Bob & Jennifer (Wine Carolinas) it was their first trip. We had a nice visit with them as we sipped wine and chatted. Dennis and I shared a bottle of the Strawberry Sensation and brought a bottle of the Purr-Fectly Peach and his latest port home. We said good-bye to our friends and debated about what to do next. We ended up going further into Rock Hill and having dinner at The White Horse Restaurant. This has been one of my favorite restaurants since my time living in Rock Hill. As we were sitting down, I heard someone call my name.... it was so friends who still live there! It was so great to see Rebecca & Darryl. After dinner we headed on home as it was getting late. 

Sunday after church and lunch we decided to ride up to Parker-Binns Vineyard. As always Dee waited on us and was her terrific self! Karen and Roberto are on a much deserved vacation! The vineyard was in the excellent care of Kelly, their daughter, Dee and the wine maker Justin. They are currently out of the Rose that Dennis & I usually share so we had a bottle of the Petit Manseng and met some really great couples. The weather was perfect as well. While sitting outside enjoying pizza, wine and live music, we also got to meet their winemaker - Justin Taylor. Justin told us that they are soon to be bottling some wine. Some that will be new to us and some that are old favorites (yes some Rose is coming!). We learned that Justin studied at Surry and previously worked at Burnshirt Vineyards (also a favorite!). 

We finished our wine and decided to make one more stop at Russian Chapel Hills Winery to see Andre. It was close to closing time but we were able to enjoy a glass each of his Malbec on the covered porch. The view was spectacular! 

 

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