Carmel Valley's "Village" has a handful of wine tasting rooms that represent the various wineries in the area. Ever heard of Bernardus, Chateau Julien, Chateau Sinnet, Georis, or Talbott? Yup, they have wine rooms here! After looking around on Yelp for the best place to take my mama to, I settled on Georis' tasting room (4 Pilot Rd, Carmel Valley).
Interesting fact about Carmel Valley: the Jamesburg Earth Station calls Carmel Valley home. It's basically the largest tracking satellite dish antenna in the whole entire world and NASA used it during the Apollo moon landings. If you are ever on a game show: Apollo's 1 - 6 were unmanned, 7 - 10 were manned earth/lunar orbit missions, 11 was our first successful lunar landing (!! [duh] !!), 12 - 17 more lunar landings, except for 13 (think: Tom Hanks).
Back to the winery recap! Georis was breathtakingly beautiful. Sunny, mid 70s weather, blossoming flowers, wrought iron wine sculptures - a perfect day.
There were two main seating areas. One just behind the tree in the above picture. The other was to the right of this fish pond. We ordered our wine flights from inside before finding a cute table to sit at. My mom got the "Grand" flight, five delectable reds. I decided to get the "Premium" flight because I am more adventurous than her. The real reason is that I haven't figured out yet if I like reds or whites better. I guess I'll have to do further research to determine... Both of us enjoyed our wine selections. The flight portions are slightly bigger than a traditional tasting portion AND they include a cheese and cracker plate - that's why prices were in the $15 - $20 range, rather than the standard $5.
Much of the gazebo area was covered by wisteria. Wisteria has the prettiest flowers, such a shame that this climbing vine only blooms one season of the year. I'd list this flower as top 10 in my book, easily.
Earlier that morning I went to Whole Foods in the Del Monte Shopping Center. My experience there was less than pleasant. I wanted to order some quasi gourmet sandwiches to pack for a picnic lunch. I ordered two of their combo meals that include a sandwich, small side salad, and bottled water. My hope was to get a good deal by adding the $3 side salad instead of ordering the salad separately. The problem was that their "small" portion size was about 1/2 a cup! Thumbs down! I actually had to go to the salad bar and get more salad greens to add a bit of substance to the strawberry salad!
My mom and I cheered each other, Nicole sipped on her water. My mom said that all of these reds is her version of "heaven."
More pictures of the cute wine tasting "room":
The turkey, bacon, guacamole sandwich on a toasted baguette from Whole Foods. This was actually worth the money! Everything else - eh. Not so much.
Roast beef sandwich from Whole Foods on foccacia (?) This wasn't my favorite. I didn't like the bread choice either. My sister loves roast beef sandwiches, specifically of the Arby's variety, so I went out of my way to get her a roast beefer. I'm practically shaking with excitement to let her know I got a RB, and she tells me she gave up meat for lent. D'oh! I knew that, but forgot, because WTF who gives up meat for lent?
She ate the sweet potato salad that I brought and crackers from the cheese and cracker plate that was included in the price of the wine flight. Check out our delicious spread!
The wine flight carry case:
On Wikipedia, there was a blurb about the Monterey Wine Trolley, which is a public bus nicknamed the Grapevine Express (route 24). Supposedly it stops at most of the tasting rooms in Carmel Valley's Village. LET'S GO PEOPLE. This screams convenience! This hoots fun! This beckons for debauchery!
No comments:
Post a Comment