We decide to join a tour so we can truly enjoy a day of wine tasting without having to worry about driving. Wine tasting is no fun when only one person can truly indulge. We join Platypus tours which usually takes smaller groups and customizes the tour based on the group. Floyd, picks us up at the hotel at 10:30am and then it’s off to pick up two more people. We’ve completely lucked out, there are only going to be four of us on the tour for the day. Another plus of touring on a weekday. Turns out, the other two folks, Andy and Sarah, are a couple celebrating their 4 year anniversary.
The roads are winding, the van ride is bumpy and it turns out the Traveling Hillbilly is the only one on the tour who doesn’t have issues with getting car sick! Things start out pretty rough. For the first 30-40 minutes of the ride, it looked like it might get ugly and messy in the back of the van, but we stopped at our first winery before anyone tossed their cookies! Whew! The first stop, Alderbrook. The Traveling Hillbilly was disappointed in this winery as were the rest of the crew. We were all ready to head on to the next destination. We hopped in the van and headed off to Everett Ridge Winery. We all LOVED Everett Ridge. We got to sit outside with amazing views of the winery, while Ben, who has a true passion for the wines he serves, proceeded to allow us to sample at least 8 different wines! Floyd realizing we were all having a good time and might be staying for a while, stealthily disappeared only to reappear with a nice cheese tray for us to sample with our wines. We all loved Everett Ridge and each bought multiple bottles of wine! All in all it was an amazing place and Ben was key in making it a truly great experience! Thanks Ben!
Next up? We headed to De La Montanya for more tasting and a picnic lunch. While we were engrossed in our tasting, Floyd once again snuck away and started preparing a great little picnic lunch for us. We decided to buy a bottle of wine to enjoy with our lunch and all sat outside on this lovely spring day and indulged!
My friend and I really lucked out. Andy and Sarah were a really terrific couple and Floyd was pretty cool too. We all had a great time.
Next up, a cool little winery with a tasting room inside a cave, Bella Vineyards & Wine Caves. Here, thanks to Sarah’s inquisitive and outspoken nature, we actually got to sample some wine right out of the barrel. While we were checking the cave out, we stumbled upon a man, taking some wine out the barrels to test the taste. Sarah asked him what he was doing and when he told her he was do a taste test, she asked if we could try some too! He politely obliged the request and proceeded to tell us about their wine making process. Little did we know until later, he was actually one of the owners of the winery. Thanks Sarah for making this a little more unique experience for all of us!
The last stop, Raymond Burr Vineyards. Here we got to taste some wine, play with Lucy (a cute and hyper little pup) and have our picture taken holding Raymond’s Emmys. It was a fairly quick stop and the Traveling Hillbilly has to admit, after an afternoon of wine tasting, this last stop is a little fuzzy
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