This past Saturday, my wonderful boyfriend, Matt, surprised me for my birthday with a personally chauffeured wine tour. My actual birthday was back towards the beginning of the month, but I was extremely busy. So Matt let me pick a different weekend for him to celebrate with me. I had no idea what he was planning, and being the type of person that always needs to know what the plan is, I had lots of questions for him, most of which I did not get answers to. I received a few clues as to who was involved and the direction in which we were going to be headed. I had an idea, but was still not sure. We woke up early Saturday morning and waited for my friend, Bre to arrive. We the headed over to pick up my other friend, Renate and were off on our adventure.

Our first stop was Montezuma Winery. This was when I knew for sure what we would be doing for the day. I was so excited as I had always wanted to do a wine tour, but just never gotten around to it or had the money to go. This whole day was such a blast, and I really needed a day like this!

At Montezuma, a souvenir wine glass was included with the tasting for a couple extra dollars, which I was a little too excited for haha…After our tasting, we hit the trail!

Along our trail we visited (in order);
Swedish Hill Winery
Knapp Winery & Vineyard Restaurant
Varick Winery & Vineyard
Goose Watch Winery
Buttonwood Grove Winery
Toro Run Winery
Cayuga Ridge Estate Winery
Thirsty Owl Wine Company
Americana Vineyards & Crystal Lake Cafe

Knapp Winery was by far the prettiest inside. I absolutely loved the lighting, the chandeliers and the lights around those barrels paired with that purple color just made the whole atmosphere really unique and elegant.
Another favorite of ours was Buttonwood Grove, who had this absolutely adorable Scottish bovine named Melody. It took a bit of convincing to get her to make the long trek to her designated feeding area, but after a bit of persuading, she got up and started to walk over. While we waited for her, we visited with the friendly goats. They didn’t take much convincing at all to come get their treats; they were quite eager as you can see from the pictures. We spent probably 20 minutes with these cuties; feeding them the treats we got inside the winery and petting them and of course taking all these pictures. Definitely one of the highlights of our day!

By this point we were getting pretty hungry. We decided to hit one more winery on our way down towards Ithaca, and by recommendation we decided our last stop would be the Americana Vineyards & Crystal Lake Cafe, which served a piece of fudge with one of their wine options. This was definitely worth the stop….Yum!

We decided to end our night with Thai food from the Taste of Thai Restaurant in Ithaca. This was probably one of the best decisions of the whole day. OMG amazingly delicious! Three of us got the Panang and Bre got Pad Thai. This has quickly become one of my favorite meals of all time! I highly recommend both the restaurant and the Panang. Overall I had an amazing day. Thanks Matt! 🙂

I learned a lot about the different kinds of wines and what I prefer. These are the wines I ended up bringing home with me…I’d say I was quite successful 🙂 I’m excited to actually have a selection for once 🙂 Can’t wait for my next wine tour!