6/18/06 - Jones Vineyard and Bishops Vineyard

Okay, I'm no wine expert by any means. But I'm aiming at at least becoming a reputable wine connoiseur.

Luckily, in my beloved home state of Connecticut, there are 18 vineyards. Yes, 18!

Surprisingly enough, my fall into viticulture commenced uneventfully. Take a bunch of people who like to sit around and imbibe large quantities of vino and stuff themselves on chicken wings, slap a name like "Salon Night" on it to make is sound hoighty toighty and you've got the beginnings of bunch of wannabe wine snobs.

Ad into the mix that I quickly became aware that we have some good vineyards right here in CT. I bought my first bottles of CT wine as Christmas presents about 2.5 years ago. Nowadays, I give wine as gifts often and in my immediate family, it is now standard for my sibling or parent to ask "What did you bring?" if we are gathered for a family dinner.

Wine trailblazing is fun, but it always more fun when you have company. I am on the mailing list for Hopkins Vineyard in New Preston, CT. I have visited this lovely place for wine events and barrel openings easily a half-dozen times. I would say that the place has impressed me so much that I could see myself having my wedding there, it is so verdantly magnificent.

Okay, but back to the wine. As I said, it is more fun to bring a friend along so I invited my friend Jaime to come winetasting with me. She claimed she knew nothing. I think she had fears that it was going to be all wine snobs and she was going to look like a dunce. I admitted that I knew next to nothing and this was a learning expedition. We mapped out our strategy and hit up two vineyards in central southeastern part of CT: Priam Vineyard in Colchester and Heritage Trails in Lisbon, CT.

But that was a few weekends ago. This past Sunday we visited Jones Vineyard in Shelton Bishops in Guilford.

I have to first start off by stating that we were spoiled by our first wine visit to Priam. We arrived and the husband co-owner was sitting there with no one else in the tasting room. We sat there for almost an hour, just the three of us having what was pretty much a private wine tasting. It was a superb way to initiate Jaime into the process.