A friend and I took a day trip to a vineyard on Sunday. It made us smile to leave the city and see the countryside on the three-hour bus trip. The bus dropped us off on a country road, rather than taking us into the nearest city, Santa Cruz. We walked about a quarter mile to Viu Manent, a vineyard.
We turned onto the dirt lane that lead to the vineyard and reveled in the spring day and the breeze and the beauty.
We took a carriage-ride tour of the vineyard. They grow 26 varieties of grapes. We saw some vines that were 80 years old.
I love this picture of our driver.
We also saw the more scientific side of making wine. This is a wine laboratory. (In this case, I believe the more posh pronunciation of lah-BOR-a-tor-y is due.) On the right are different types of vats they use to ferment the wine. We tried some wine straight from the metal vat. It tasted raw.
We tasted six types of wine. The pencil was for jotting down notes, like "hints of lavender" and "pollinated by bees who also frequented clover." I stuck to check marks for the ones I like. The metal bucket is a spit bucket, which I did not use. High-brow or not, I don't look free wine in the face!
After the tasting we ate lunch on the patio of the vineyard's restaurant. This was our view. There happened to be an equestrian match going on. This is when we began to wonder if this was real life.
We began our meal with squash soup and a salmon and avocado salad. We continued with two bottles of wine. I had duck for my main, and we topped it off with a delightful little dessert that we ate so fast there wasn't a second for a photo.
I got on bus and couldn't physically hold my eyes open. I slept for two hours. A deep sleep.
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