life list #55: visit a winery/vineyard

It's pretty awesome when you can cross an item off your Life List on your birthday (while getting drunk!). And last month, I did just that when I took a Virginia winery tour on the day I turned 33.

Now, yes I love wine, and yes, I have lived in Virginia most of my life and yes, while Virginia is no California or Washington, it is a fairly decent wine state, so you may be wondering why I've never in my 33 years been to a Virginia winery. The answer is logistics. I'm not a fan of drinking and driving and I'm not a fan of being a designated driver. So getting to a winery without mixing alcohol and automobiles is darn near impossible. We tend to stick to metro-accessible watering holes.

Getting to a winery is a whole lot easier, however, if your boyfriend rents you one of these:

Doesn't Larry have the best ideas? Being two days before Christmas, my birthday is extremely difficult to schedule around. Since childhood, I was always disappointed when no one could come to my birthday party or I had to celebrate it in January. But this year a few of my closest buddies took the day off from work to spend the day celebrating with me...and cruising around the Virginia countryside in a limo drinking wine. I'm a lucky girl to have such awesome friends!

The winery tour was amazing! We hit three wineries and a brewery, and it was one of the most fun days of my life (and definitely the best birthday)! To be honest, I really didn't think you could get that drunk from a wine tasting. We frequently go to wine tastings at local wine shops and I've never been the slightest bit tingly afterwards. But if you do three full wine tastings (usually about 8 wines each), a beer tasting, AND have a glass of wine at each winery, you will be drunk. Very very drunk. Which I suppose is an appropriate way to spend one's birthday! Thank goodness for the limo and our awesome driver, whose name I can't remember. (Probably because I was drunk.)

We started the tour at Sunset Hills Vineyard, which was just what you'd expect a winery to look like. It was located in a beautiful old red barn that was built in the 1800s, but had recently been restored by the Amish:



I typically strongly prefer red wines, but we all loved the whites at Sunset Hills. Virginia is home to some varietals I'd never tasted, and their Sunset White is a blend of Vidal Blanc, Chardonnay, and Viognier. We came home with several bottles of this wine.

After the tasting, we ordered a cheese and charcuterie basket and ate lunch (and drank more wine) on the mezzanine overlooking the winery.

The leftovers from the charcuterie basket are in my bag. "Is that a salami in your pocket...?"

Then it was back in the limo...

Thirty-three!

...and on to stop #2: Corcoran Vineyards. We arrived at an unassuming little house, and when we went inside the tasting room discovered that we were actually in a log cabin built in 1750 - low ceilings, sloped floors, fireplace - could not have been more cozy! Pouring the wines was Lori Corcoran, the winemaker herself - and she was super outgoing, friendly, hilarious, extremely knowledgeable, AND she makes great wine!  Every wine at Corcoran was fantastic and I just cannot say enough good things about this place!




But Corcoran is not just a winery. They also have a brewery. This is where things start getting a little fuzzy...

They had cute little beers...

...and a cute little puppy!

"Hey lady, is that salami in your pocket...?"

Did I say things got a little fuzzy? I meant a lot fuzzy. 
Exhibit A:

Step 1: Drink lots of little beers! Step 2: Get hiccups.

So we filled up our growlers and then got back in the limo...


Our final stop was Breaux Vineyards. I don't remember much of this place except I really had to pee. And the wines were good, too.



After our full day of alcohol consumption, the limo driver got us safely home (and even snapped our picture)...

...so we could consume more alcohol. Some friends who couldn't make it on the wine tour stopped by, and the celebrations continued into the evening. I'm fairly certain I drank more wine and beer, drunk dialed my mother, and then watched the boys set off various explosives.


Despite the fact that I was hungover all of Christmas Eve, the winery tour was a great time and I can't wait to do it again. I was highly impressed with the quality of Virginia wines and am now a little obsessed with visiting more local vineyards - there are over 200 in the state alone.

That should keep me busy...

birthday shenanigans

Having a birthday on the 23rd of December is like punishment to a kid. People forget it's your birthday because they're busy preparing for Christmas. Friends can't come to your birthday party because they're on the way to grandmother's house for Christmas Eve. And worst of all - it's always cold, which means no pool party like the kids who had summer birthdays. Lucky jerks.

I was that kid who had a birthday on December 23rd. And while my parents were always awesome about celebrating (Do you know my mom? Have you seen the amazing cakes she's made over the past few decades?) and did a great job keeping my day from getting overshadowed by Christmas, I was still bummed out when my friends couldn't come to my birthday party. My parents even complained about the inconvenience of my birthdate and suggested we celebrate my half-birthday in June instead, but to this I respond, "They only people you can blame for my almost-Christmas birthday are YOURSELVES."

(Public Service Announcement to my friends trying to conceive: USE BIRTH CONTROL IN MARCH. And in April, too, just in case your kid is born early.)

Well, I'm no kid anymore (sob) and now birthdays are more dreaded than eagerly anticipated, but still, December is a pretty lame time to have a birthday. Luckily, I have Larry (who is one of those lucky jerks with a June birthday) in my life and he paid attention to my childhood sob stories lamenting my inconvenient birthday and has always done a great job of making December 23rd a special day for me (even if I can't have a pool party).

Last year, he set up a winery tour by limo through Virginia wine country. We had such an amazing time that we decided to make it a tradition and do it again this year. This year, Larry rented the LIMO PARTY BUS and a few more friends were able to join us to celebrate. 
We hit up three wineries in the Purcellville area: Bluemont (Go for the views!), Doukenie (Go for Leanne - the most hilarious 'wine educator' we've ever had! And also the horses!) and North Gate (Go for the chocolate truffle pairings that accompany the wines!).

Shenanigans ensued. I'll let the pictures do the talking:













There was also a special guest along for the ride - Naked Man! If you're not familiar with Naked Man, you must follow Jane's Instagram feed!


After seven, yes seven, hours of wine tasting and cruising around in the party bus, we returned home for some post-partying. There was more wine drinking, beer consumption, and also a bottle of tequila that was mysteriously empty the next day. Some more friends showed up. There was a bonfire. I don't remember much else except that it was awesome:


Oh, and Naked Man passed out. The next day, he had quite a headache.

He might not have been the only one...

Thanks so much, friends, for making my day so special and for cheering me up out of my pre-holiday funk! It's impossible not to have a smile on my face with such awesome people in my life. 

I think it was even more fun than a pool party!

summery summary

Summer on the back porch - a duet by Larry and special guest, Merlin of The Borrowed Abode.

When I last blogged, I think it was still snowing. And I was sick. Don't worry, I haven't really been sick for the past four months. Nor have I given up blogging or been intentionally hiding under a rock. There have been a few frustrations keeping me from writing (a broken computer and a complete meltdown of all Apple products in the Smoellke house being the main problem), but mostly I've just been busy doing other things.

My summer activities can pretty much be summarized into three categories: books, travel, and vegetables. Oh yeah, and broken shit - like my computer. (And also the car, toilet, tub, kitchen sink, and front door knob. And my iPhone. Pretty much everything is broken right now.)

Anyway, I thought I'd break the blogging ice with a summary of what we've been up to these past few months. I hope to write in detail about a lot of these things at some point in the future, but for now - bullets:

+ BOOKS
Summer is reading season for me, and I've been checking out huge stacks of books from the library and tearing through them. Just like last summer, I've been instagramming what I've been reading (and drinking) - check it out with hashtag #booksandbeverages. I'm pretty much obsessed with books right now - I like discussing them and I'm currently addicted to the Dear Book Nerd podcast - give it a listen, fellow bookworms!

+ TRAVEL
We've been out of town 18 days out of the past month. And I love it. In July we took trips to New Jersey, Colorado, and Wyoming. We visited friends and family, explored national parks, hiked, biked, floated, sat on the beach, and tried new restaurants. Next month we go to Maine. It could not be a more perfect way to spend summer. I am my happiest when I am traveling. Our relationship is at its best when we're exploring the world together. And travel is such a great reminder of all that is out there and all that I want to see and do in my life. (Keeping up with life at home in between trips is a bit chaotic though. The house is littered with suitcases, receipts, maps, and piles of dirty clothes. Oh well!)

+ VEGETABLES
Larry and I have been eating a plant-based diet since the end of March. It wasn't something I felt comfortable writing about when we made the switch, but now we're four and half months in and I've been surprised at how many friends have expressed interest, curiosity, and support for our new diet. So at some point I will share our thoughts and favorite recipes (and I promise not to be a preachy vegan!). We also joined a CSA this year (Bull Run Mountain Farm) and so we have spent the summer drowning in vegetables. I have enough homemade salsa and pickles and pesto to feed an army!

+ WEEKENDS
This spring we got into a weekend tradition of taking a hike or visiting our CSA farm in the morning and then stopping at a winery on the way home to sit outside and enjoy a bottle of wine in the Virginia (or Maryland) countryside. We've been to Paradise Springs, The Winery at Bull Run, Greenhill Winery, Maggie Malick Wine Cave, and Sugarloaf Mountain Vineyard. We also love stopping at our favorite lunch spot in Falls Church, Nourish Market, for vegan chick'n salad sandwiches. Evenings are spent in our own backyard.

+ A YEAR OF ACTIVE
Exercise is still a part of my life, though I've found I have a hard time sticking to a routine when I'm traveling so much. Luckily, we've had very active vacations that have included hikes and bike rides, so I'm still logging lots of miles on my FitBit and instagramming my progress with hashtag #ayearofactive. We're currently obsessed with cycling and are looking to buy bikes of our own, which so far has proven more frustrating/confusing than shopping for a car. (We've been to NINE bike shops in the past week...)

+ NATURAL SKIN & BEAUTY PRODUCTS
When we started changing our diet back in March, it only seemed natural to pay more attention to what I was putting ON my body as well. I've spent the past five months switching to natural and chemical-free skin and beauty products. I've found some great stuff and am still searching for others. (Mineral sunscreen is a bust so far - the ones I've tried leave my skin coated with a white film that I can't stand!) This is another topic I'll write more about, when I have all the answers...

+ FUNNELCLOUD STUDIO
My business has been put on the back burner this year. I'm still shipping prints and I even designed a new product, but I'm taking a break from art markets until the holidays. I'm also discontinuing the majority of the prints in my shop - so once they sell out on Etsy they'll be gone forever. But new stuff and hopefully a new website will take their place in the coming months, once I get these technical snafus sorted out...

Back to that broken computer. It's still broken. It's actually been broken since January. (I'm currently blogging from Larry's laptop which he brought home from work for the weekend.) And yeah, it's annoying to not have a computer, but it's also kind of nice. I like spending my time doing things other than staring at a screen all day. I like not spending hours editing photos. But it's no way to run a business or keep in touch with people. I honestly cannot keep up with 200 e-mails a day on my phone (which seems to be selective about what messages it receives anyway), so if you e-mailed me this year and I didn't get back to you, I offer my sincerest apologies and I promise I am not intentionally ignoring anyone - many e-mails have unfortunately slipped through the cracks. I've told my friends that I am currently only capable of communicating by text message or Instagram!

So I can't say that this is the beginning of regular blogging again for me, but I at least wanted to check in. Hopefully, I'll save the cash/gain the know-how to fix my poor iMac soon. Until then, Instagram...and exploring the world!