#40. Go Wine Tasting

Over the 4th of July Weekend, Dan and I headed south to Grants Pass to visit Dan's family, his parents, and his sister and brother-in-law.  It was a very fun weekend, filled with lots of R & R.  We really needed a weekend to get out of town and relax, so this was pretty much the perfect solution.  It didn't hurt that the weather was significantly better in Grants Pass than in Portland too.

We didn't make a lot of plans for the weekend, we were just going to see how things went... while we were there, my super talented sister-in-law used my parents-in-law's yard as the backdrop for a photo shoot.  She was photographing wine bottles for a local vineyard for their website.  I was pretty entertained watching the process... there were tons of different bottles, all shapes and sizes, I learned about a dozen new wines that day... and here I thought I knew them all! Ha!  Also, my very talented, former dog model, cute little pup was on hand to help her auntie... 

 What can I say? Mollie loves a good Cab.

Well, I bet you think that I'm about to say, when the photo shoot was done, we cracked open the bottles and started tasting... not quite.  The vineyard was about 20 minutes away, and the next day, my SIL was getting ready to take a CD of the pictures over, so she said,  "Hey, you guys should come with!"  So we all jumped in the car, took a pretty little scenic drive over to Schmidt Family Vineyards.  I'm pretty sure this is my first visit to a vineyard EVER... that I can remember.  No, I'm not sure how this is possible either, since I live minutes from Oregon Wine Country, and tons and tons of beautiful vineyards.

In the Barrell Room

We just dropped in for about an hour or so, and I'm so glad we did.  The property was amazing, beautiful landscaping, gardens and more.  There were tons of people there, just hanging out for the afternoon... it was a beautiful day, and it was the 4th of July, so there was a BBQ going on too!  We did a tiny bit of wine tasting... I tried the Merlot and the Cal's Folly... I loved both, and while I never met a red wine I didn't like, I could tell this was some quality wine!  The vineyard is owned and run by the Schmidt family, and we met three generations of Schmidt women, who were all so nice!

Walking along the outskirts of the vineyards

Thank you to my SIL and BIL for the experience of my first wine tasting.  It was short and sweet, but I know this is definitely something I love and want to do again, and try more of...  Dan says I can't count this on my list because it was just a "mini" tasting adventure, but I think it just means I need to edit #40 to read: Go Wine Tasting... twice!

More shots of the beautiful gardens and property