Post-Thanksgiving Winery Spectacular Spectacular

Really. Just avoid those malls after Thanksgiving and head straight to all of your local wineries. They’re waiting for you.

In Ohio, we have the annual barrel tasting. On Saturday, Nov 28, you can visit five Ohio wineries to try unreleased vintages and current wines.

Barrels @ Harmony Hill

You can visit our friends at Harmony Hill and Kinkead Ridge, along with Burnet Ridge Winery, Henke, and Woodstone Creek. Hours and costs at each winery vary, so make sure to double-check the web site before you head out on your winery journey for the day.

Barrels @ Kinkead Ridge

Additionally, Elk Creek is having an anniversary sale at all of their locations. (Disclosure: I do a little freelance marketing for Elk Creek and they advertise on this blog.) If you want to stay on the Kentucky side, Elk Creek is offering deep discounts on their wines and a party atmosphere at the winery in Owenton.

Now, don’t special tastings and winery sales sound better than crazed shoppers and long lines? I thought so. I’ll see you at the wineries.

A Kentucky Wine Weekend That’s Close to Home

This weekend, which will hopefully be a lovely autumn weekend, you can experience a lot of Kentucky wine and you won't have to go much further than Covington and Camp Springs. 

Kentucky grapes? Yes, actually. Those tobacco fields aren't getting
much use now that smoking is being banned in many states and causing
cancer in general. But they do provide the perfect soil for growing
grapes. I admit, Kentucky wineries are still young and growing, but you
might be surprised about the quality of many of the wines.

Saturday

On Saturday, you can partake in the Northern Kentucky Wine Festival right down on Mainstrasse in Covington. The festival runs from 2-10 pm on October 17. Your $10
admission includes a souvenir wine glass and 4 tastings, although you
can buy additional tasting tickets for $1 each or 6/$5.If you find a
wine you like, you can purchase it by the bottle or by the case.

The N
Ky Wine Festival is all Kentucky wines, but not all of Kentucky's
wineries. Some of our favorites in the past have included Black Barn, Ashwood
Cellars, Elk Creek Vineyards,
Lover's Leap, Wildside Winery/Wildside Vines, and Chrisman Mill.

The wine festival isn't just wine though. It's an opportunity to try some tasty Kentucky Proud
snacks. I tend to buy a lot of these products at Remke; I'm a big Ky
Proud supporter because the food is just so good. In addition to food,
there will also be crafts such as ceramics, rustic furniture, and
jewelry. The last couple of years, these vendors were mixed in well with the wineries,
giving you a chance to enjoy your wine and keeping the wine tables from
being too crowded. I usually buy jewelry from several of the vendors.

Sunday

On Sunday, you can enjoy the 3rd Annual Camp Springs Herbst Tour. (Herbst meaning Autumn, apparently.) This is a self-guided tour. You'll pick up a map and start driving, and probably be surprised not only by how beautiful it all is, but by just how close our fair city is to the country.

You'll visit three working farms, six stone houses, a horse farm and equestrian center, four churches, artist studios & crafts, a daylily farm, plowing fields, a pumpkin patch, see draft horses and miniature Hereford cattle.  But the important things on that list are the two vineyards and wineries.

You'll get to visit the vineyard, farm, and tasting room of Stonebrook Winery. If you go, make sure you try their pomegranate wine. Additionally, you'll get to visit Camp Springs Vineyard, which is holding their grand opening the day of the Herbst Tour. You'll be the first ones to try their inaugural white, red, and fruit wine.

To get started on the tour, stop by the Camp Springs Firehouse and pick up your map. What a lovely way to spend a Sunday!

WBW #61: At the Source: Elk Creek Vineyards

Every month, wine bloggers the globe over participate in Wine Blogging Wednesday, where we all write to a specific theme. This month, our assignment is to go drink local, but to do it at the local winery, talk to the winemaker, and just get to know the place. Wine always tastes better "at the source."

This ended up presenting an interesting conundrum for me. I wanted to branch out and visit a Kentucky winery instead of an Ohio one. The nice folks at Elk Creek in Owenton invited me down for a tour and tasting (and even threw in Temptations tickets). So two weeks ago, I went to the winery, had a great time, and came home and whipped up this post (which has been patiently in my queue, waiting for WBW). Now for the conundrum: a few days after my visit, Elk Creek reached out to me for social media marketing. Effective today, Elk Creek is a client. I made the decision to go ahead and publish this post because it was written early, but I wanted to make my new relationship with the winery clear as well.

Now that we've got that out of the way …

I'd never been to Elk Creek, and I was surprised to find out it's only an hour from Cincinnati. In fact, it's only an hour from Cincinnati, Louisville, and Lexington, and it sits halfway between I-71 and I-75. To get there I took the scenic route from I-75, which had a lot of twisty-turny roads. I came home the highway, on I-71, which took about 15 minutes longer but was much more my speed.

The Elk Creek campus is lovely. It includes the winery, an outdoor amphitheater where they hold concerts, grape vines (of course), the Elk Creek Hunt Club (clay shooting), and a bed & breakfast with a small spa. Inside the winery building is an art gallery and a deli.

Vineyard and Lodge

While I got a great tour of the winery (they make over 220,000 bottles), what I really want to tell you about is the wines. They offer a lot of varieties, running the gamut from the popular and best-selling sweet wines to dryer wines.

Joe Hall took me through the winery and chose wines he thought I might enjoy. I'm not sure what Joe's position is at the winery, but he definitely has a handle on the production process as well as on what makes each wine unique. Joe also has his own watercolors on display in the art gallery!

Elk Creek grows some of their own grapes (about 45 tons), but they also bring in a lot of grapes for their wines. They source their grapes from farmers throughout Kentucky and occasionally bring in grapes from California and Oregon. Their current estate (grown on property) wines are a Chambourcin, a Chardonelle, and a Cabernet Franc.

Estate grown grapes

I tasted a fair number of wines, although not as many sweet wines as they offer. Not surprisingly, the sweeter wines, both white and red, are their best sellers. Here's is a quick run-down of the notes I scribbled:

2006 "Kentucky Blue" Vidal Blanc ($9.99/bottle): I tend to enjoy Vidal grapes, and this one was not too sweet, very light and tart. 

2007 Chardonnay (14.99/bottle): I was told that this particular Chardonnay is similar to their special edition bottlings for their US Open Chardonnay and the Ghostly White Chardonnay for this year's Halloween wine.  This vintage of the Chardonnay was oak-free. Despite my overall dislike of Chardonnay, this may have been my favorite of what I tasted.

2006 Kentucky Blue Riesling ($14.99/bottle): Light and sweet with apples and peaches. I have girlfriends who would love this wine. 

2006 Crazy Elk Blush ($9.99/bottle): I noticed at the Temptations concert that this was a pretty popular wine. It's not my thing though. The notes read that it's got a hint of strawberries – I'd say it was more than a hint. It's also really similar to a White Zin style, which explains both its popularity and why I didn't really care for it.

2006 Sweet Owen Red ($12.99/bottle): When I tried this the first time, I didn't really like it. It's a Norton, which is perhaps my least favorite grape on the face of the planet. Again, this is one of their top selling wines because it's a sweet red. However, I tried it again at the concert and this time, it was chilled. While still not my favorite, I thought chilling it showed a marked improvement. 

2007 Estate Chambourcin ($19.99/bottle): These grapes were grown right on property. I'm a big fan of Chambourcin in most cases and this was no exception. It was aged in oak for 1.5 years, but I thought it was well balanced.

2006 Viognier ($19.99/bottle): I wanted to like this one a lot, as I love a good Viognier. This one was too oaky for me, but it was very round, and filled my whole mouth (as it should). But I definitely needed less oak. 

2006 Chardonnay ($17.99/bottle): While I have girlfriends who would love the heavy feel and oak of this Chardonnay, I preferred the "naked" Chardonnay I had earlier. This one was too much for me.

2006 Sangiovese ($24.99/bottle): This is an enjoyable wine, although in the past I've tried what I think was the 2005, and its even better. The 2006  is a soft summer red, fairly dry. Apparently it pairs well with Italian (which makes sense) but I'll need to try it out. 

2007 Cabernet Sauvignon ($19.99/bottle): This wine is supposed to be similar to the US Open and Halloween Bone-Dry Red limited edition bottlings. The Cabernet is a bright young wine, a bit tangy, and would probably do well to be saved for about a year.

2007 Estate Cabernet Franc ($34.99/bottle): This is a really good wine. Is it a $34.99 wine? I don't know. I understand the price point based on the work that goes into an estate wine, but I tend to get extra picky when the price crosses $25. That said, it's a soft Cab Franc and my exact notes are "not a lot of pepper, really enjoyable," which is saying something. I usually can't stand Cabernet Franc. 

If you live nearby (as in Louisville, Lexington, or Cincinnati), Elk Creek is certainly worth the hour drive. The people are incredibly nice, the wines are good (and in many cases local), and there's a lot to do. The view from their patio is gorgeous. It's a perfect excursion for a nice autumn day.

Elk Creek at Sunset

View all my photos from Elk Creek.

My big thanks to my friend Lenn at the newly renamed New York Cork Report for hosting this month's edition of Wine Blogging Wednesday.

Our Guide to Drinking Local

If you read CityBeat at all, then you noticed that they had a big article on Buying Local this week – complemented by an article on "Vineyard Tripping in Ripley." Yep, CityBeat finally caught up to what I've been telling you all for years: Drink Local.

Happily, CityBeat visited both Kinkead Ridge, which gets most of the local press anyway, and Meranda-Nixon, which is sort of an undiscovered gem. (Or at least it was …)

So, as sort of a chaser to the CityBeat article, I wanted  to point new readers (hello Enquirer readers! *waving*) to some of our articles on Local Wineries, including Harmony Hill, Meranda-Nixon, Kinkead Ridge, and Chateau Thomas.

Back in the spring we had "winery week" here on My Wine Education, and we visited several local wineries:

• Harmony Hill
• Meranda-Nixon
• Kinkead Ridge
• Chateau Thomas

Last autumn, we got to help harvest the grapes at Harmony Hill, which was fun, hard, and educational. I guarantee we'll be helping out again.

• Harvest Part 1
• Harvest Part 2

We've also got a post from our 2008 Labor Day trip to most of the local wineries and even a photo of Kinkead Ridge in winter.

Don't forget that you can also visit Henke, our own urban winery, over on the west side. Woodstone Creek, another local winery, is located near Xavier and offers bourbon and vodka in addition to wine.

Our Local Wineries category allows you to poke through all of our local winery-related posts, all the way back through 2006.

Finally, I just want to give a shout-out to Valeree, whose Cincinnati Locavore blog is your guide to everything Slow Food locally.

Wine-Girl.net Meet-up/Tweet-up: Harmony Hill Winery

It's been a few months since I've been out to Harmony Hill Winery, but it's one of my favorite places to hang out on a beautiful summer day.

Join me tomorrow – let's call it a Wine-Girl Meetup (or Tweetup if you're on Twitter). Kevin and I are going to be there around 2 pm (when the winery opens) and I'd love to meet everyone there!

Don't forget that this is also your opportunity to partake in the Farmer's Market, which runs from 2 -6 pm.

Harmony Hill is family friendly – no matter who your family might be. So bring your kids and bring your dogs. Furry friends just need to be on a leash and friendly with other dogs and adoring people.

Bring your outdoor chairs or blankets in case there is a crowd and feel free to bring a picnic lunch and complement it with a bottle of summery wine and some great live and acoustic music.

Remember that buying and drinking local wines is a great way to stay "green". If you're interested in meeting the winemaker, he is usually around as well – and incredibly fun and friendly.

We hope to see you there!

Guest Post: Kentucky’s Jean Farris Winery

While Kevin & I are in Alaska, we've asked some friends and
colleagues to post on their wine loves, wine experiences and more. For
this post we welcome Shannan Boyer, a local parenting blogger and one of the driving forces behind Cincinnati Women Bloggers – also one of my close friends! Thanks Shannan!
__

Every summer our family packs up the car and heads down to
Somerset, KY for a little boating on Lake Cumberland.  The drive down is about 2.5 hours long, giving us plenty of
time to play car games and check out the scenery.  On our drive one of the things I’ve often noticed and have
always been curious about were the road signs posted along I-75 for local
vineyards.

Well this past weekend we headed down for our first trip of
the summer and this time, rather than driving straight through to Somerset, we
decided to be a little adventurous. We decided to pull off outside of Lexington
and visit Jean Farris, a cute vineyard located
off the very scenic Richmond Road.

Not having heard of Jean Farris, we had no idea what to
expect as we drove down Richmond Road. When we finally arrived, we couldn’t
believe how beautiful it was.  The
drive up to the main building was lined with rows and rows of grapes.  It was like nothing we’d ever seen
before.

While normally my husband and I would have sampled a few of
the wines before buying,  the
bistro was not open at the time we arrived, so we went with our guts and purchased
a bottle of their Riesling ($16).

From the label:

Cold fermented to
preserve the bright tropical fruits and citrus notes. This lightly sweet
Germanic white has a delicate balance, and soft floral notes.

Keep in mind I am no Michelle Lentz (ed. note: I think Shannan is doing just fine!), but I have to say that
this was one amazing Riesling. I found it to have a sweet taste and could
definitely identify the citrus notes.  The wine was smooth and I really
enjoyed the fact that it didn’t have a dry aftertaste.  If
you like dry wines, this would not be the wine for you. This wine was
extremely easy to drink, and in fact, my husband and I finished the entire
bottle in less than an hour – a feat for me – as usually I am a
VERY slow wine drinker.

We are heading back down to Lake Cumberland soon and
I will definitely be picking up a few bottles of their Riesling to have at
home. Overall if I was using Michelle’s rating system, I would
give Jean Farris’ Riesling a giant smiley face.

A local parenting
blogger, Shannan Boyer resides in northern Kentucky with her husband and two
young boys. When she’s not blogging about her family’s many adventures on her
blog Mommy
Bits, she and her family are likely to be found out exploring and
enjoying all that greater Cincinnati has to offer.

Winery Week: Chateau Thomas

We veered off of our well-beaten path this past weekend and visited the Chateau Thomas tasting room in Nashville, IN. Chateau Thomas also has a winery you can visit in Plainfield, just outside of Indianapolis. However, I've been going to Nashville, a cute crafts-oriented village, since I was a little girl. This seemed a great opportunity to go back.

Nashville is located just outside of Bloomington and is a fun little retreat. It boasts two different tasting rooms: Chateau Thomas and the Brown County Winery. Chateau Thomas is located in Coachlight Square, right as you pull into town.

The tasting menu blew us away. There are around 54 different types of wine listed. Of that list, you can pick 5 to try for free. Kevin and I each picked 5 and shared, giving us 10. We still didn't make a dent in the list. We came back later in the afternoon and tried another couple wines, plus 5 wines off of the reserve list. (The reserve tasting is $7.) The list is rather overwhelming. Looking at it now, I'm noticing things I didn't while in the tasting room, such as a 1991 Chardonnay library release. Had I noticed it then, I would have loved to try it!

The list is nicely organized based on Dry White, Classic, Dry Red, Sweet Wines, Slender, and Reserve. The back of the sheet offers a nice little quiz, magazine style, that helps you establish your wine tasting preferences so you can jump into the correct portion of the list.

In case you're curious, Chateau Thomas doesn't grow their own grapes. They import their grapes from Canada, Washington, California, and Oregon, and then all the blending, aging, and fermenting happens in Indiana.

As usual, the endorsement is in the wines we came home with. We brought home 1 each of the three Slender wines, because we want to give them a more in-depth review. Kevin is even taking a white Slender to the Wine Bloggers Conference with him. We also brought home a Teroldego and a Late Harvest Viognier.

After the jump, find our quick notes on the wines we tasted:

Read the rest of this entry »

Winery Week: Harmony Hill

Harmony Hill is by far my favorite place to end a day. They now have a farmer's market on Saturday afternoons, as well as live music on Fridays and Saturdays.

We've been here so many times that we didn't really have anything new to taste, but we did get a special treat. The Ovation is one of my favorites at Harmony Hill and winemaker Bill Skvarla let us try some right out the tank. The Ovation 2008 was going to be bottled last Wednesday.

Ovation is a blend of traminette (there it is again) and cayuga. It's was bright and fruity, with some spice behind it. This is a back-porch / back deck white if there ever was one. I have always wanted to buy a case of this for summer, but it hasn't happened yet. I really want a case of this particular wine. Why? Because Kevin and I helped harvest the grapes!

Bill told us that he ran into the high alcohol issues as well. What I love about Bill is that I can ask him a winemaking question and he'll answer me in regular old English. He loves to share the knowledge and he is great at explaining things. He told me that high alcohol tends to result from a long, hot growing season, coupled with a drought. It crankes up the brix, cranks up the alcohol. What's brix? I like this definition from Wines of Canada:

While we were at the winery, we also tried the 2006 Rhapsody, which is a blend of 94% Cabernet Franc and 4% Cabernet Sauvignon. I have no doubt we've tasted this many times before. This time, however, it surprised us. It seems to be turning into something similar to a Sangiovese, softening up the tannins and retaining the structure. Who knew? I love wine because it's dynamic, and this was the perfect example.

Opening weekend, Harmony Hill was packed. If you plan on going one evening this summer, make sure you get there early and bring your own picnic. With all the people, you might want to bring your own lawn chair or blanket as well. And even your dogs (on leashes) and kids if you want.

Winery Week: Meranda-Nixon

We'd met Seth and Tina, winemakers and proprietors, at the Wine Festival this year but hadn't had a chance to get to the winery. Since they're also in Ripley, not that far from Kinkead Ridge, we popped in before heading to Harmony Hill.

The first thing I learned is that Meranda-Nixon is wonderfully scenic. I got some great photos, despite the rainy, cloudy weather.

The next thing I learned is that Meranda-Nixon is open year-round, except for January. On weekends, they also offer dinner. Their tasting room/restaurant is lovely, decorated in a decidedly Tuscan style.

Like any winery after my heart, they have a couple vineyard dogs hanging around as well.

The last thing I learned? They make a large variety of wine. Whether you like sweet or dry, red or white, they've got it. I know we tried at least 10 different wines, of varying vintages, although I didn't get notes on all of them. Once again, I get busy chatting and my note-taking skills suffer.

As usual, a good endorsement is the fact we left with some wine. In this case, we took home 2 bottles of 2008 Traminette and 1 bottle of the Red Oak Creek red blend. Not that there weren't others we wanted -it's just that by winery #2 we were already up to a case.

After the jump, you'll find notes on several of the wines we got to try.

Read the rest of this entry »

Winery Week: Kinkead Ridge

I never hide how much I love our local vineyards. We always try to put in appearances several times over the course of a summer. When the wineries opened this year on Memorial Day weekend, we were there. Of course, we chose to go on a rainy Monday, but that was alright. Even the rain couldn’t dampen the fun.

Our first stop was Kinkead Ridge in Ripley. If you haven’t been to Kinkead Ridge, the winery is in a little house on a residential street. The first time we went, we thought we were at the wrong place. Then you walk in and you see barrels and tanks everywhere. And people. The winery always seems to be filled with happy people mingling, tasting, and enjoying the wine.

This year they were able to release a bunch of new whites, including a Riesling, Traminette, Viognier-Roussanne, and the Revelation blend. Since their whites are actually my favorites, I was excited to try them. We were also lucky enough to get to taste the 2007 Cabernet Sauvignon from the tank, and even two 2008 reds from the barrel.

I thought I’d taken better notes. When I sat down to write them up, I realized they’re terrible. So my apologies on that. The best endorsement of all, of course, is what we went home with: 3 bottles of Viognier-Roussanne, 3 bottles of Revelation White, and 2 bottles of the River Village Cellars Traminette. We’re thrilled enough with these that Kevin is taking a bottle of Revelation White and a bottle of the Viognier-Roussanne to the Wine Bloggers Conference with him in July.

Ron Barrett, the winemaker, creates what the grapes tell him to make. These releases are slightly higher in alcohol than you might expect. I heard that from several local winemakers this year though. The wines are balanced, however, so the alcohol will sneak up on you, as opposed to banging you on your head.

My absolute favorite of the Kinkead Ridge wines is the Viognier-Roussanne. The 2008 is 14.8% AbV, which means that I’ll happily drink an entire bottle and then probably happily fall down. I am usually fairly sensitive to high-alcohol wines, but this one isn’t hot at all. Ron may have contended with high alcohol, but he dealt with it superbly.

After the jump are the few notes I managed to scribble down. Did I mention how poor my notes were this time?

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