This past weekend, my wonderful wife and I celebrated out 10th wedding anniversary in NY’s Finger Lakes region. We hit many of the local wineries, had an amazing time, and picked up some fun memories. A lot of the wineries tend to blur together…partially due to the wine, but partially due to how they don’t really stand out from one another. But, there were a few and I’m going to digress from the usual tech and fitness stuff and sprinkle in a few posts about wineries that really stood out for us.
Maybe it’s because I’m a trainer, maybe it’s how I’m wired; I’m always looking at how information is conveyed. I’m observing how I or the crowd is being taught. I got to see it done brilliantly at Silver Thread Vineyard.
You’ve heard people say “I don’t like wine” or “I only like red wine.” You’ve probably also seen a stereotypical wine snob taste a wine and tell you where the grapes were grown, the type of soil, etc. Silver Thread helps get you past the first, and strangely enough on the path to being the second!
How? A Riesling Flight!
One of their options is to taste 4 of their Rieslings, each from a different vineyard. One vineyard has a lot of mineral content, another is close to the lake, another is from a commercial vineyard and I don’t recall what (if anything) was unique about the other.
If you say you don’t like wine, chances are you haven’t had it in the right circumstances. You had cheap stuff, maybe someone’s grandfather’s homemade jet fuel (not that THAT’S a bad thing), or one of the big 3 out of California: Chardonnay, Cabernet and Merlot. (I’ll be honest, I’m not a big fan of Cabs or Merlot. I thought I wasn’t a wine drinker because of them.)
When you taste the first Riesling, you taste Riesling; usually a bit sweet, crisp like a tart apple, maybe some pear flavors or a floral aroma. Then you taste the next and HEY! How’s that a Riesling from here when it’s clearly a different wine!?!? That’s where the magic starts to happen. You taste the first again…Hmm, this is almost citrusy where (sipping the second) this one isn’t. Maybe it’s the minerals you’re tasting? Move onto the third. Okay, now you’re just completely messing with me!
You just tasted 4 of the exact same wine variety, from the same winery, but from different vineyards. You can taste the difference from vineyard to vineyard and know why they taste that way. You’re on the path to being a wine snob. Never thought THAT would happen, did you? When you think about it, it does make sense. Do all burgers taste the same? Does every vanilla ice cream taste exactly the same? No, and why should wines?
Silver Thread is a small winery that does a huge service to its customers; it teaches them something about wine. So many wineries shuffle you through like cattle, giving you whatever they can pour as fast as they can pour, it’s a treat to visit a place that wants to make good wine and good wine drinkers.