WINE & HERB FESTIVAL

On Friday night (May 2nd), I happened to be online checking events in the Ithaca area. I came across the Wine & Herb Festival put on by the Cayuga Wine Trail Assoc. It was for SATURDAY and SUNDAY! I mentioned it to PJ and he said "LET'S GO"! And we DID! I love these spur of the moment adventures!

During the Wine and Herb Festival, participants can visit all 16 wineries on the trail ( over the 2 days) and enjoy wine paired with a different herb-enhanced recipe at each winery. Best of all, you get to take home the potted herb that was in the food pairing at each winery to begin your own garden. (They give you the recipe of the food that you sampled too!)

We stopped at Wegman's first to get salads for lunch and then took them to Cass Park where we sat on a love seat swing and watched the Cornell Crew Team practice in the inlet.

Off we go.....

What a blast!! We had sooo much fun and we even learned a lot on the way! We started on the left side of Cayuga Lake at the first winery... Americana Winery. We paid for our tickets and they gave us 2 souviner wine glasses that we would take to each winery to sample the wines. They also gave us a recipe and a garden layout plan for a herb garden. If we went to all of the 16 wineries, we would end up with 16 herb plants, just as in the diagram. They gave us a sample of their Asian Noodle Salad and a little sampling of their Cayuga White wine. This is going to be fun! We then went into another room where they let you sample about 5 other wines. On the way out they gave us a chive plant. Off to the next stop!

We probably went to about 8-10 wineries the first day. The good thing is that you go at your own pace so hopefully the wine won't 'hit' you! We noticed a lady wearing a crocheted wine glass holder. What a GREAT idea! Carrying the glass back and forth to the car and trying to hold all of the papers was getting to be annoying! She told us that there's a lady selling them outside of the Thirsty Owl. That was our next stop! The lady was gone. DARN.

While at a different winery we saw 2 ladies wearing those crocheted things. We told then about the missing lady that was selling them and it turned out to be THIS LADY! She had 2 left

($3 each) so we took them! They're funny looking but made life easier.

On and on we went until we decided to head back. We had dinner at The Boat House, one of our favorites.

The festival didn't start until 12 on Sunday so we took a ride over to the Community book Sale, an annual HUGE event. We bought a big carton of books, mostly cookbooks though. PJ found a book that one of our favorite shows BONES was made from. He then found the rest of the series. We didn't know that was from a book series.

We went for a stroll through the Ithaca's Farmers Market before heading out. We got our lunch 'to go' from 2 separate vendors that we always wanted to try.

Our first winery on the right side was King Ferry which has a Riesling that we like. PJ was wearing his belmont Stakes shirt which started a conversation with the man serving us. It turns out he's one of the owners sons and lives in Asia. He came back to film a documentry on historical places in America... one of them being Belmont Park! PJ and him have now been in touch and might be in this documentry!! We went to the rest of the wineries with Hosmer being our favorite. We ended at Six Mile Creek where we did our sampling on a deck overlooking their vineyard and pond. VERY NICE! We finished off by having dinner at the always great Maxie's Supper Club and then heading over to Sunset Park to watch the sunset.

We got our 16 herbs and tasted a lot of nice food. Some of the recipes were:

Roasted Red Pepper Tapenade from Hosmer, Rosemary Corn Soup from Lucus Vineyards, Wine Thyme Chowder with Chicken & Corn from Montezuma Winery, Potato Salad With Lemon and fresh Herbs from the thirsty Owl, Old World Pasta Roma Tomatoes from knapp Winery, Sun Dried Tomato Pesto from Cayuga Ridge Winery, and Basil Pasta Salad from Sweedish hill Winery. I have more in the car but am too lazy to go and get them!

We had such a great time. We want to go again next year and bring along a bunch of friends!

Six Mile Creek Vineyard

Sunset Park

Boy we're getting OLD!!