The last month, instead of traditional going-out-to-dinner dates, Lia and I have been going on afternoon excursions. It's a great perk that this current season of life provides us. As I think about it, we are very fortunate. Maybe its this out-of-the-ordinary-ness that's caused us to wait nearly three years before fully taking advantage of it. I don't know, but I'm glad we finally have. In fact, we've had so much fun, we've gotten downright evangelical about it.
It was in this spread the joy spirit that we invited Derik and Bree Briggs, Tim and Lindsay Musser, and Paul and Stefanie Rudnicke to go on a mini wine tour last weekend. Jonathan Murfee was kind to let me borrow the Young Life van. (Unfortunately he and Allison had prior engagements so they could not come.) So just the eight of us piled in and headed into beautiful Yadkin Valley. We visited Rag Apple Lassie, which Lia and I had been to before and liked. (http://www.ragapplelassie.com/) The picture above is with their steel cow. (The vineyard is named after the owner's 4-H winning heifer.)
Hanover Park Winery was the surprise. (http://www.hanoverparkwines.com/) It is on the smaller side, but it has charm. The main building is an 1897 farm house. We entered and were ushered directly to the back room for a private tasting. The whole time I was waiting for the real group to show up. (We had not reserved a private tasting.) But we went with it. A minute in, this guy in a safari get up comes sauntering in. Grape juice stains on his Columbia shirt. His name is Michael and he happens to be the owner and winemaker. He spends the next thirty minutes telling us his life story. It was truly amazing. And the wine was good. Even better with the experience.
And so, the morals of the story: afternoon dating is good, driving around Yadkin Valley in a party van with a bunch of your friends is good, and pretending you are someone else in order to get the deluxe treatment is also good.
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