Cheeselovers Day is only a few days away. What better way to celebrate than with a pairing of 4 wines and 4 cheeses! We did the tasting for this entry back in the summer during our visit to Lake Erie Wine Country. One of our favorite things about wine and cheese in this area is the Reverie Creamery and Market in Mayville, NY. They have such a great selection of not only their own cheeses but many of the big hitters too. We’ve made a trip out to this shop a few times along with our annual wine tasting voyage around the lake. Actually the tradition now includes the wine tastings, the visit to the cheese shop, and a group tasting with family.
As we began planning our time in Pennsylvania, I knew we’d take our annual trip out to the wineries with Neil’s cousin Diane. I created a list of all the places we’ve visited in previous years as well as some of the brands that had been shared with us at picnics and dinners. Then I consulted the Lake Erie Wine Country website, my go-to guide when we come here. The wine trail goes up and down Lake Erie through Pennsylvania and New York. This year I chose two wineries in Pennsylvania within 10-15 minutes from where we were staying as I figured this year could be more of a relaxed wine tasting trip. The first winery was Presque Isle Wine Cellars, which was not only close by but also their website suggested you could bring a picnic lunch and sit near the creek (locals pronounce this “crick”). The second winery, Penn Shore Winery and Vineyards, http://pennshore.com, also made note of relaxing with a glass of wine as you take in the vineyard views. Sounds like just the break we could use!
The plan was set long before we arrived in Erie, PA to go wine tasting with Neil’s cousin Diane and her husband Brian. They love wine tasting (and drinking) all those local grapes and could hardly wait to take us out in their neck of the woods. When we started looking into which wineries to visit I was pretty surprised how many of the local wines we had already tried (https://wineandcheesefriday.com/wine-and-cheese-tasting-at-aunt-kathys-house/). The main driving force for this tasting trip was to go find the new local cheese shop, Reverie Creamery and Market. Once I found where they were located along the Lake Erie Wine Trail we made our winery choices. Although we had four hours, we only made it to Reverie, 21 Brix and Noble Winery. That’s how it usually goes for us ?!
This week’s WineAndCheeseFriday was inspired by a bottle of wine from New York. Our neighbor Val’s mom had been saving this bottle from near where she grew up, and decided to give it to Val to see how she liked it. The bottle of wine was from Merritt Winery (http://www.merrittestatewinery.com) in the Lake Erie Wine Region. Knowing that wine region and it’s tendency to be sweet wine, we planned to have some savory snacks to balance it all. Val had a different idea, she though we should have some cheesecake with the wine, which I wouldn’t say no to, so we ended up having both sweet and savory snacks. When Val was picking up the snacks at Publix, she came across another bottle of sweet wine from San Sebastian Winery in Florida (http://www.sansebastianwinery.com) to bring along. She also brought a friend along, Jessica, to join in the fun. We decided to share the wine fun with our other neighbor, Amanda, so there were 5 of us in total. This is a slightly different group but our second time all getting together for a wine tasting (http://mferraro73.tumblr.com/post/135469941803/gouda-goat-cheese-with-chardonnay-and-grenache). And now onto the shenanigans!
We recently took a trip to visit Neil’s family in Erie, Pennsylvania and decided to make a trip out to their Wine Country, http://www.lakeeriewinecountry.org. What a strange feeling it is to be driving around “up North” and feel like you are in Wine Country. I remember a past trip to visit and asking why there were so many grapes and finding out that Welch’s is based nearby. As you may expect, this would mean that many of the grapes are the Concord varietal but there are quite a few different varietals that thrive in this climate near the lake. There are over 25 wineries available to visit in this region but we limited ourselves to just one, Heritage Wine Cellars, http://heritagewine.biz.