Text 35768, 108 rader
Skriven 2013-04-04 20:34:00 av MICHAEL LOO (1:123/140)
Ärende: wine country 380
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We asked the girl at the wine shop where to eat, and she made
a few suggestions; the one that sounded best to all of us was
Champaigne BBQ, right on the town square, so we hustled down
there only to find that it - and all her other recommendations
- were not yet open for the season.

Next door, though, the bar at the Park Inn was in fact open
and in fact was serving food. The waitress, who it turned out
was really the bartender but doubling up owing to the earliness
in the season, took her time serving people, and as it was
toward the end of the lunch hour, otherwise satisfied patrons
had to hunt her down to pay their tabs.

In due time, our food came out, and it was pretty good. Annie
had a hot turkey on white that looked pretty normal (perhaps
real turkey, or at least high quality deli stuff), the only
oddity being that she ordered her fries with extra gravy.

Dorothy's special cheeseburger wrap was rare as ordered, cheesy
as ordered, but in a sickly green tortilla - we hoped that that
color was intentional. She had failed to notice the word "wrap"
on the specials board, so its appearance was slightly surprising.
I asked if she needed to switch with my sandwich, but she made do.

I asked for a plain burger very rare, but on second thought asked
for bacon, a 99c option. The beef came out nice and red and about
10 oz, drooling blood on a rather spongy bun (which meant that I
ate the bun). The bacon was two measly thin slices of very smoky
(I thought it tasted like alder, of all things) rather lean meat,
not too salty but making me not miss the salt and pepper that were
absent from our table (it would have been easy to wander over to
another table and get some). On the side, as I didn't want fries,
a cup of cauliflower-Cheddar soup, which seemed to be cream sauce
with some almost crisp vegetable and hardly a hint of cheese.

With this I had a Finger Lakes Copper Ale, a robust and rather
hoppy American ale, pretty good.

While we were chowing down, a few people came in only to be
severely crestfallen when informed that the kitchen had closed.
Seems this town rolls its sidewalks up until about Memorial Day.

--

As we'd seen the best, we decided to pass on the other name
wineries nearby, Bully Hill and Pleasant Valley, and head on
down to the Finger Lakes Beer Company. Well, in place of the
open at noon sign we'd seen earlier there was a piece of paper
that said that they'd decided not to bother that day, so we
went on to plan B. Pleasant Valley is the oldest licensed and
bonded winery in the country, the physical plant listed on
the register of National Historic places with its impressive
19th century stone factory buildings. Though now family owned,
it had for many years shared corporate ties with Gold Seal,
Great Western, Taylor, and many other labels you may have
fond or unfond memories of. It itself is now known for its
aperitif and dessert wines as well as some labrusca and hybrid
products, for which in general I have little respect. So I
made my tasting (again, 5 free, but Annie and Dorothy both
walked, so I was deprived of many tastes, not that I'd have
wanted them all) of aperitif and dessert wines.

Solera dry sherry - this is semi-dry, the usual dried fruit
and nuts thing going, rather unconcentrated, nothing special.

Solera sherry semi-dry - almost the same as the above, with
more defined walnut-almond and raisin notes, no better.

Solera cream sherry - a bit sweeter, a bit more date and
raisin and fig flavor, but oddly insufficiently sweet for the
style, and lacking the richness that is the charm of a good one.

Vanilla cream - huge vanilla nose. Tasted like what I'd imagine
a float of French vanilla over the above sherry might be like.
Not unpleasant, but I couldn't see drinking much of it or where
it would fit into a balanced diet.

Chocolate Lab - the house tasting note says "unabashedly native
labrusca character with chocolate flavor" - it wasn't grapy in
the way I understand grapiness; rather it had peculiar notes of
roses and apricots. I found it disconcerting bordering on
unpleasant but could see that someone wanting to get snockered
on not-so-cheap hooch could do so with pleasure while pretending
to be ingesting chocolate-coated fruit.

Caywood Vineyards Trifecta Vidal Blanc Ice Wine - a blend of
three vintages, 08 through 10. Lots of stone fruit and a touch
of, er, I guess strawberry in an extremely sweet (25.5% RS)
package; tons of balancing acidity redeemed it, and though it
was over $30 for half a bottle I picked one up to mull over
further at my leisure.

That was enough for me, and I turned down the chance to taste
the new Great Western products and the Gold Seal sacramental
wine, and we went back southward as the sun set in the west,
or wherever it sets these days.

The rest of the night was an impromptu nosh of leftover chili,
veal chops, Chinese food, and fruit, accompanied with cheap
beer and Courvoisier. At some point I felt compelled to do my
laundry. I tottered to bed at 0530 and was snoozing away happily
whem I heard this plaintive "are you up?" I figured it must be a
lot later than I'd thought, or else one of the cats had bit the
big one.

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