Toast Tuesday: Fruit Wine

I’ve taken some liberties with this week’s drink.  Our author has taken us on some crazy stops in this journey, like fortified wine in the heat of summer.  This week he got it in his head for us to drink blueberry wine from Maine.  One of the tiniest states in the union and some ridiculous fruit wine.  blech…. I did not go out of my way this week to try and find this random swill.

Instead, I went for some local swill.  In case you are unsure of my feelings on this, I am not a huge fan of fruit wines.  They tend to be overly sweet and are more akin to koolaid than a lovely table wine.  In the spirit of the endeavor, I made a point of trying some fruit wines.

I called up an eager friend who is usually like Mikey and willing to try anything.  We drove out into what felt like the middle of nowhere and found this tiny winery.  The Old Millington Winery boasts it is a boutique winery and has walls of awards to show how well they have done.  M tried the reds and one of the whites, while I tried all the fruit wines.  We shared sips and compared notes.  Neither of us were enamoured.

The woman pouring tastes for us quite promptly told us she poured wine, she didn’t make it.  She certainly didn’t tell us anything about any of the wines we were tasting.  Having worked in a tasting room before, the story sells the experience and that sells the product.  She clearly missed that memo.  When I asked her about one of the reds and if that was used for the port, she half answered, then shut up again.

Now days when we all walk around with cell phones in our hands taking pictures of everything, she was even snotty about me staging the bottles so I could take a picture.  Little did she know, I am a world renownd critic in my own mind and have the power of Yelp at my disposal.  As expected the fruit wines were sweet.  The blackberry was the worst and the strawberry tasted fake.  The watermelon was the suprise of the lot.  It was light and would make a nice spritzer.  I did buy a bottle and it’ll be interesting to see if I can drink more of a glass once I actually open it.  I have an event coming up that I’ll take it to and I’m certain it will get the attention it deserves.

I know Meg is also veering of course this week.  I can’t wait to see what she comes up with, something good I’m sure.

Have a wonderfully sweet week!