Today we went on a tour at an old Family Vineyard; Benzigers. When my parents told me we were going on a wine tour, I thought "Oh No!!!!! This is gonna be torture 😭😭😭"
Turns out I was wrong!
Interesting Fact (for me anyway 😛): We learned that the Benzigers are descendants of a Swiss Family (relatives of my Papi's old friend Urs?) who came to California in the late 1800s.
We were driven through the beautiful vineyards in a tram pulled by a tractor, which was great fun. The driver and tour guy was called Mike, he was really funny and told us lots of interesting things about wine making.
After lots and lots of interesting information about how their vineyard is biodynamic and uses no chemicals by introducing various plants and insects to protects the vines, we got to taste some white wine 🥂 (pretty obvious 😋). I wasn't really supposed to...😅. Can you keep a secret? I tried some anyway 😉 only a little... Not too sure if I was keen on it or not... to be honest... I think i'll stick with Coke.
We then went to see where they squash the grapes. The people who were squashing them 🍇 were either using a copper stick to squash them or a steel stick to squash them (it rhymes! 😁). Long gone are the days when they trampled them with their bare feet. When I looked into the barrel, I saw all the skin of the grapes parting away from the juice; it was starting to look like lumpy Ribena.
We then went into a hobbit-like cave in the mountainside where barrels full of fermenting (ageing) wine was kept and learned all the ins and outs about barrels. It was nice and cool down there, one thing I remember is that the temperature is always a constant 15C.
At the end the grown ups got to taste red wine 🍷 (URGHH boring again! 😒) I had a little sip but it was like fur on my tongue so I spat it out, guess that's why kids don't drink wine... nah, I definitely will stick to the Coke...although Mummy says she will be surprised if that's the case when I'm 20 and she is determined to turn me into a wine connoisseur - we'll see. Anyways back to the grown ups tasting bit: I found it boring, it would have been nice if there was some juice tasting for the kids or at least a drink...Coke maybe? 🤤
Also another nice thing for the kids would have been a fun quiz to test what they learned (and if they listened!)
All in all I found the experience very good and I sure learnt some stuff about wine! 😉
If you were wondering about going, JUST GO!!!!!!
After the tour we stopped off for lunch at the Glen Ellen Deli, it was a fab shop full of lots of goodies and yummy sandwiches and fruit.
Hope you enjoyed the post! 🙃