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Winery Weekend

by bhealthy on June 27, 2011

I had one of the best weekends visiting with my sister! Here we are at the Linganore Wine Cellars on Berrywine Plantation (Saturday).

We kicked off the weekend on Friday with a movie that her HOA was hosting in one of their neighborhood parks- Red. It was with Bruce Willis and Morgan Freeman, they are retired federal agents or something and they are considered “Retired, Extremely Dangerous”. Kinda funny, kinda unrealistic, but definitely enjoyable for a breezy summer evening! We made a mixed drink and munched on some chips (since this is a food blog, gotta mention that!)- but it was outside so the photo was too dark to turn out well without interrupting the other movie-goers!

Saturday we slept in, made eggs and bacon, laid by the pool, read Cosmo and finally got going to the first (and only) vineyard of the weekend! We drove to the Berrywine Plantation but had the intention of two others in mind for after.

Much to our surprise, it was “Beach Music Festival” which meant that we could not do a simple tasting and tour. Instead, we paid the entry fee ($20) and had unlimited tasting of their 15 most common wines, free tour with additional tasting of their 5 reserved wines, and lots of vendors with food, dresses, hats, yard nomes, and a band!

I thought it was awesome because this winery won an award in April this year for their green/ energy conscience business practices. On the tour we learned that they went 300% wind powered ( via Texas) last year, they recycle their corks and glass bottles – and repurchase them. They also take the grape mash and repurpose it on their fields for deer or other animals to munch on.

This is the wine-maker, who is the son of the owners, that told us all about their award, practices, and much more!
This is his son and he is the tour guide every summer, while he is in school for mechanical engineering/robotics. The same tornadoes in April that affected Raleigh also took the roof of their warehouse! They decided to use translucent panels when repairing their roof to create “sky lights” and fortunately, have yet to turn the lights on in there.
I also enjoyed that they use no chemicals in their wine making process, they produce quite a bit of fruit wines from actual fruit (surprise!). Their peach wine is 100% peaches, soaked and fermented. Oh and they support local farming too- Their peaches are purchased from a local peach farm, and so on with their raspberry wine, their strawberry wine…etc. They even have honey wine, which had the most unique flavor but not quite for me. I actually was the hugest fan of their wines because I tend to not enjoy the fruity, sweeter wines. If you do like those wines however, I would highly recommend them because of the way they run their winery and vineyard. 

Since we were in Maryland, it was only appropriate that we went out to dinner at a crab shack. The Cracked Claw had this whole seafood extravaganza-

I have to be honest that I was there for the company- my sister, my brother-in-law and one of their best friends were what made the evening so much fun! I enjoyed the salmon for my entree though I did try both the snow crab legs ( the tiniest bite ever) and the Maryland crab (another tiny bite). I liked the Maryland crab much more than the Snow.

My sister joined me for a run through her new neighborhoods, well, she biked alongside me! I thought it was awesome that my sister got up early on Sunday to exercise with me! We headed south to meet my mom for some serious shopping! My favorite buys were a new pair of sandals and a skirt from J-Crew. It was such a perfect weekend!

What was your favorite part of the weekend?

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  • Anonymous

    What a FANTASTIC weekend!! The winery trip sounds like so much fun. And the winery itself, just very cool. I love doing healthy activities with my family. My favorite part of the weekend? Seeing the results of Josh’s sisters work on our baby room!

  • http://three-cookies.blogspot.com/ Three-Cookies

    Unlimited tasting – that sounds like an awesome deal. Great timing. Is that a relatively small winery?300% windpower sounds like an impressive statistic.

  • http://www.givelovecreatehappiness.com/blog.html Wendy Irene

    That does sound like the perfect weekend!!  I feel relaxed just reading it.  What a great picture of you two :)  

  • Parsley Sage

    Buying wine there would make me feel so virtuous!  Sounds like a fantastic weekend :)  

  • http://mealsformiles.wordpress.com/ Kelly

    ahh, I’ve never had crabs in Maryland before but they are right up there with being one of my favorite foods. Well, crabcakes to be specific. yum. Glad you had a great weekend!

  • http://www.yummychunklet.wordpress.com Yummychunklet

    Any weekend including a trip to a winery is one fantastic weekend!