Wine Me, Dine Me

So my birthday is on Tuesday, but since the rest of the fam will be working all day and i'll be working all night we celebrated it today. There happened to be a winery tour going on today and my mom suggested we get a sitter for the kids and me, Wayne, her and my stepdad all hit a few of the wineries. Now, i'm not very big on wine, to be quite honest, but it sounded intriguing, adult, and something we could do together without spending lots of money, so i agreed. It turned out to be a lovely day and i discovered a few wines that i DO enjoy!
i got pics of the day and included them below

In the car on the way:




(that's my mom!)
i took a self portrait, a la MySpace ;)

and had my mom take one of Wayne and me


The first winery left a lot to be desired. It was tiny, empty and the girl behind the counter was cute but it was obvious she would rather be somewhere else. We tasted a few different wines and bought a bottle of blueberry dessert wine, though. The only thing of note there was in the parking lot as we left. There was an original Mini Cooper, complete with right hand side steering and Brit flag painted on top.


The next winery we hit was French Creek Winery.

Inside was very nice, but the best part of the inside was a sign hanging over a door. Unfortunately, the only shot i got of it came out fairly blurry, but you can still read

The wine there was NOT to my liking....very very dry. So instead of buying any wine we bought a pair of wine glasses with the name of the winery on it.

i got a pic of the vineyard there.


Our last stop was my favorite of the day. It was Manatawny Creek Winery.


Obviously, the theme color was purple, but it was so tastefully done. The people there were wonderful, helpful and friendly. The inside of the store had much more than wine. There were jellies made with wine, infused grapeseed oils, vinegar, wineglasses and all sorts of wine related items.

We taste several wines that i REALLY liked. We ended up purchasing a bottle of Autumn Blush for Wayne and Mason's Mayhem for me. The neat thing about Mason's Mayhem was that Mason is the owner's cat. We were told we could only taste it after seeing the bottle:

Cute, huh? It ended up being my favorite and a MAJOR plus was that they donate a portion of each purchase of that wine to the local animal rescue.
We also bought a small jar of blueberry wine jelly.
They had this wonderful sangria popsicle, as well, that they gave us as we left. It was so delicious and very refreshing and we sat and ate it on the porch overlooking the vineyard.
The pic of Wayne enjoying HIS pop made me laugh hysterically

Here are my mom and stepdad, Jim, out on the porch, as well as the vineyard below:




All in all it ended up being a wonderful day. We had a good time and i discovered that i DO like wine....just the sweet ones ;)

Below are my birthday gifts....the bottles of wine, the glasses and the jar of jelly. Wayne also got me two pieces of jewelry, a pink leather and pearl necklacke as well as a delicate silver cuff bracelet.




i would love to hear a recommendation from others who enjoy wine! i'm sure i can find all sorts of different kinds as we only hit three of the nine wineries on the tour today!