(Wine) Tour De Finger Lakes :: Part 2

Oh hello! Sorry for the break in this post.
Here resumes where I left off with the wine tour the amies and I took the other weekend.

After Cayuga Lake, we made our way over to Seneca Lake.

We first tasted at Red Newt Cellars, which I have been to twice. They make so many lovely, interesting wines. These above are all the steel tanks they age wine in.
Talk about wine on wine on wine on wine!

We finished our tour at Atwater Vineyards, which makes such a variety of wines (dry, sweet, sparkling, mulled, dessert, etc). The views there were without a doubt the best of the tour.

Also these ladies are totally the best <3

While we were at Atwater, I also managed to find Le Copain's name in the guest book from when we went over Senior Week. That was pretty special. :)

After the tour, we headed to Finger Lakes National Forest and pitched a tent there for the night. We actually ended up spending a lot of time in the car since we were pretty cold. We even managed to prepare dinner and drink wine in there without too much of a mess.

Speaking of the wine, we didn't have a bottle opener so got crafty and pushed the cork into the bottle, which ended up working!

The next morning, I got to live my recent past and show my three lovely amies some of my favorite parts of Ithaca/the surrounding area.We started off with a 7:30am hike to Taughannock Falls. It's seriously one of the coolest geologic formations in New York, and apparently was named for the Native American chief who was pushed off the falls by a rival chief long ago!
(*Thanks for reading the informational signs, Amie DB!). 

Afterwards, we made a pit-stop at my beloved Wegmans so I could stock up on my favorite salsas and salad dressings and soba noodles. (If you never heard of Wegman's you should read this.)



After Wegman's, we made perhaps the most important stop anyone can make in Ithaca... CTB (aka: Collegetown Bagels).

I think the amies really liked it too. I got my usual Buttermilk Bialy (sprouts, melted muenster, tomato, and dijon mustard on a bialy) and the amies all got to try their signature rosemary salt bagels.

Once we had breakfast, we made the trek home and ended up taking some pretty back roads through pastoral America, which made for a really nice drive home after a really nice weekend.

Until next time, Finger Lakes!

Other Stuff
01. Wine touring during senior week.
02. The oldest wine I've ever had
03. A few tasty wine (and cider) picks from the tour. All are $20 or less!

• Hellbender from Red Newt (A very tasty and wallet-friendly Port-style wine)
• Black Magic Hard Cider from Bellwether (A beautiful pink hard cider with black currant juice)
• Pinot Bubble from Atwater (A mostly dry sparkling wine with a subtly sweet finish) 
• Chablis from Americana (A dry, light white perfect for summer drinking)

(Wine) Tour De Finger Lakes :: Part 1

Last weekend, three of the lovely amies and I went wine touring in the Finger Lakes (hi whenever you read this!)! It was so much fun to go with these ladies who have been my friends since way back when. Grade school to wine touring... who would've thought?!

Friday, the night before our departure, we slept over at Amie AB's like old times. Even though I swore off drinking for the night, Amie AL popped over with sangria, and well, I definitely forgot any promises I made. We all did. Thankfully there were enough of us to spread it out amongst though! ;)

On Saturday morning, we drove up to the Finger Lakes through some unfortunate rain and started our day off with a modest in-car picnic (to help absorb the alcohol to come). We started our Tour de Vineyards at Americana Vineyards on Cayuga Lake.

At Americana, our sommelier was great with recommendations and finally gave me two samples where I could clearly taste what an "oaked" wine tastes like. Like I thought I knew, but oak isn't exactly a food I eat all that much lol. I tried same wine twice, but one version had been aged in oak and the other had been aged in steel. After that I knew what oak tastes like. Simple as that!

Next we went to Bellwether Cidery/Winery to taste hard ciders. We tried ciders that almost tasted like champagne, ciders that tasted like crisp commerical ciders, and a special and very delicious cider that had black current juice in it and was a beautiful pink color. Talk about dan-ger-ous!

Last on the Cayuga Lake segment of our tour was Lucas Vineyards. We got "Nautie" (a name they gave a few of their sweeter wines) and drank some Tugboat (a juicy red with a slightly complex finish nicknamed "Chugboat". Neither were bad, just not good for wine, but we did have (tug)boatloads of fun!

Those three vineyards concluded Part I of our tour on Cayuga Lake and then with a BAC of barely 0.03 (we brought along a breathalyzer to stay on the safe side!), we drove off to Seneca Lake to taste at Red Newt and Atwater, which I visited over senior week as well.

Stay tuned for Part 2!

xo