Bye for a While

[Innkeeper]

We returned home yesterday. It was a very nice trip. We left Monday and swung by Shrewsbury to pick up a three pack KC was sending to Gene. Spent the night in Clifton Park, NY with Bev’s cousin, and had a great Italian meal she fixed that we washed down with a bottle of Valle Martello Monte. On Tuesday Bev had a very good appointment with her doctor in Utica, and does not have to go back for a year. That night we went to Grinaldi’s and had a wonderful Italian meal washed down with their house Monte.

On Wednesday we drove down to the Finger Lakes hitting the east side of Seneca first. We first stopped at Atwater for the first time, and it was very nice. We bought two Rieslings. Next we went to Standing Stone and found them closed on Wednesdays! So we went next door to Wagner and bought two Rieslings and a Vidal Ice Wine that we might well have picked up at Standing Store if they had been open.

Next we met Gene for lunch at Knapp. Had a very nice discussion with him on a wide variety of subjects, and enjoyed Knapp’s crab cakes with their Finger Lakes Chardonnay. We picked up two bottles of the delicious oak free Chard. Gene took us out to watch the Canadian vine planting machine that was working its way north from Virginia to the Niagara Peninsula. It uses a laser to plant perfectly straight rows at an exact depth with exact spacing in about five minutes per row. We exchanged the wine from KC for a case from Gene to KC and let Gene get back to work.

We crossed over to the west side of Seneca, planning to taste our way down, and return up the east side. However we were detoured by a very serious accident, which fortunately had no fatalities. When we got back to the wine trail we were below Fox Run, and they would not let us go back up north. So we went to Anthony Road and Glenora and bought two bottles of Riesling at both stops. The folks at Glenora called Fox Run and found that the road had reopened so back we went. The tasting room manager there named Dan Mitchell was about a hundred cuts above your typical tasting room manager. He is very knowledgeable and personable. We found that they had sold out of Lemberger, and that the new vintage would be out in a couple of months. We bought two bottles of Cabernet Franc.

We returned to Utica, and had an Italian dinner at Lapino’s Trackside. We were wined out so Bev had ice tea and I had a couple of bottles of Saranac Black and Tan. The next day we returned to Shrewsbury and spend a wonderful evening with KC and Jude. We went to the byob diner he is always talking about. We started with stuffed mussels, fish chowder, and salad and washed it all down with a 2002 Siduri Sonoma Coast Pinot Noir. For entrées, Jude had veal, and the rest of us had bbq’d baby back ribs. KC popped a Napa Valley Syrah (forgot the name) that was lush and peppery and fantastic too. We split two Banana Fosters’ for dessert. Back at the house we sipped an Oregonian Late Harvest Pinot Gris. After a fabulous breakfast yesterday morning, we returned home to be met by a thoroughly pissed off cat.


[This message has been edited by Innkeeper (edited 05-27-2006).]