Many people look forward to Black Friday (mall shopping mayhem the day after Thanksgiving) and Cyber Monday (internet shopping with a little less mayhem the Monday after Thanksgiving), but my new passion is Wine Weekend (not in wikipedia yet, but give me time), which is the three day weekend (Friday, Saturday and Sunday) after Thanksgiving.
I am not getting up at o'dark 30 (did that enough in the service thank you) the day after a wonderful family gathering to stand in the cold with lukewarm cocoa and strangers to purchase an item that I can truthfully live without. I will however gladly crawl out of bed Saturday morning around 9:30 am, have a mocha, maybe a muffin but preferably as scone, and then head out for food and wine. I'm even willing to it again the next day, Sunday. So that is exactly what we did, enjoyed Wine Weekend.
Saturday after Thanksgiving my husband, my brother, and I took the opportunity to visit Fraser, a winery that isn't generally open for tastings. In fact they only open during the holidays. Their Boise tasting room is tucked in a small industrial area between Ann Morrison Park and Capitol Blvd. They are near one of my favorite businesses Life's Kitchen.
The tasting fee at Fraser is $5 per person, pretty typical for Idaho. Also, that $5 is rebated into the purchase price of a bottle of wine. During Wine Weekend they paired their wines with chocolate (you can't go wrong with wine and chocolate) and they included a nice buffet of cheeses and breads. The stand out wine for me at Fraser was their 2008 Cabernet Sauvignon. My only bummer was that they had logo hats, but no logo glasses for my collection.
Our next stop was the new “kids” in the valley Huston Vineyards. They are located on Chicken Dinner Road in the community of Huston, Id. Shortly before we arrived it had started snowing, lending to the that holiday adventure feel. This tasting event was being held at the family farm. Walking into the barn we were greeted and invited to enjoy all the foods and wines they had to offer. The tasting fee for the event was $5 per person, again typical for Idaho. The have lots of fun logo stuff, unfortunately their glasses were stuck on a truck somewhere in Oregon. Oh, well just another reason to visit them again when their permanent tasting room is open.
It was so much fun being inside their old barn; hay bails stacked, wood stove in the corner cranking out heat, wine barrels in the corner, crock pot on the buffet, heat torches and picnic tables in the middle of the room and Visqueen Plastic lining the walls. Absolutely divine (really, I'm not being sarcastic, it was like stepping into a scene from a movie).
In addition to tasting their award winning 2008 Private Reserve Red and 2009 Chicken Dinner White, we got to try straight from the barrel their upcoming Merlot and Syrah. Gregg said they had plans to blend the Syrah, I sure hope they don't (it is so good on it's own), but I am sure I will enjoy whatever they create if they do. I am a big fan of barrel tastings, there is such a sense of exclusivity that comes with it. Quite literally the wine will never taste like that again because it changes as it matures and when bottled.
After Huston, we headed up the road to Hells Canyon. Before we even pulled into the drive, I knew that a bottle of their 2006 Idaho Merlot Reserve had to come home with me. We bought a bottle over the summer and had plans to enjoy it with a nice fall meal, but one of my hubby's friends claimed that although he is wine lover, he didn't like Merlot. I was shocked, not like Merlot, that's just crazy. So we just had to have him over for dinner to show him the error of his ways. So back in September I cooked up a delectable pork roast and served the Hells Canyon 2006 Idaho Merlot Reserve, poor guy never knew what hit him. I think he enjoyed admitting he was wrong though and I have it on good authority that he has started trying more of the local Merlot wines. You're welcome Idaho.
Back to Hells Canyon, in my mind the entire point behind a tasting is to see what else the winery has to offer and to refresh your memory of what it is that you like so much about wine. Tasting fee for this event was yep, $5. Upstairs we tried the white wines and enjoyed light snacks, downstairs in the basement we enjoyed red wines and snacks. Being down in their cellar was a bit of an adventure. Hubby and I discovered their selection of vintage wines. I love the everyday affordability of the wines here in Idaho, but just once as a treat to myself (I'll probably share with friends got on my good side now if you love red wine) I am going to go to Hells Canyon and purchase a $95 bottle of Merlot. I didn't need to buy a wine glass during this visit, I already have a stemless ZhooZhoo glass.
After Hells Canyon we headed over to Koenig Distillery and Winery. As always their tastings are at no charge, but I highly recommend leaving a tip for the hardworking staff. My twenty pound cat broke my Koenig glass one day as she was chasing a microscopic moth (not quite that small but it was a tiny bugger, about the size of my pinky fingernail). The silly cat jumped up on to the top row of bottles lost her footing, kicked off a couple of bottles and broke a few of the glasses that were hanging, so this was a great opportunity for me to replace that broken glass.
Our last stop on Saturday was Bitner. The house was packed! I think it was because they weren't charging a tasting fee either. All in all a very productive day, I went home with one new glass and seven bottles of wine!
Sunday was much more relaxed. We drove out to our favorite Kuna winery, Indian Creek, enjoyed homemade curry, good company (I need to remember to take Dahlia some Christmas tweets), some good old fashioned music on the turn table and we had fun tasting some of the upcoming wines in their various stages of aging. All that fun packed in and we still made it home in time for Sunday afternoon football!
