A Brief Break From The Middle East To Talk About Wine

 So, let us take a brief break from Tales from the Middle East to take a gander at the weekend I had last week. I mean, two weeks ago. Oops. Time flies.


For The Gentleman's birthday this year, it was decided that we needed to go on a wine tour of Maryland, and that we would need a bus to take everyone. It transpired that someone had a friend of a friend who knew of someone who did wine tours of Maryland with buses. It was quite fortuitous, really. Except that we wound up with a party van. Which was fine, because the group  of 11 of us were still allowed to drink mimosas on board. Which is all we really wanted to do anyway. I mean, you know, in between all the delicious wine tasting.

We went through this before the first wine stop. Which was approximately twenty minutes outside the city. It was Saturday morning, and we were thirsty.

Elk Run winery in Mt. Airy was the first stop.

Someone commented that there's something incredibly depressing about vineyards in winter. True story.

Blank Ankle Vineyard, Mt. Airy. Definitely my favorite of the three. You can enjoy Black Ankle at such fine establishments in Baltimore as Flemings, or Bin 604. Or you can just make the trip yourself out to Mt. Airy.

Black Ankle

I'm so artsy.

Black Ankle

Black Ankle

Black Ankle

Black Ankle

We went on a very informative tour where we learned that this is the snrrffgaabjke that makes the jfyuhuhf. Or something. (IT WAS THE SECOND STOP AND WE KILLED FOUR MORE BOTTLE OF CHAMPAGNE MAKING MIMOSAS AFTER THE LAST STOP.)

And THIS is a....I'm not even going to try.

EZ Bake Oven?

The different vats were identified with Post-Its. It was so ridiculously tempting not to switch all the Post Its around. Also - please check out my awesome texting gloves that "Santa" (aka Mom+Dad) gave me for Christmas. The thumb and forefinger have some kind of NASA technology that allow you to utilize a touch screen whilst keeping your hands toasty warm. AWESOME, I KNOW! Seriously, I love these gloves.

What's a girl gotta do to get a drink around here?

A snarffblatt.

Shadow fail.

The tasting building is entirely eco-friendly and stuffed with hay. To prove they aren't lying, they included a Truth Window in the design. HONESTY.

Black Ankle is SO ecofriendly, even the bar is made out of hay and materials from the farm.

A prize in every glass!

Black Ankle

My recommendation? The Crumbling Rock. Holy wow.

Cheers!

The last stop on the tour was Detour Winery, which specializes in fruit and  ice wines. Say what you will - they were freaking delicious. We blew through bottles of pear, blueberry, and raspberry wine the first week we got back.

Um, correct.

For Snap - a foot pic. I miss you.

Happy Birthday, The Gentleman!