Visit with John & Connie in Sugar Grove, PA 

- 11 July, 2021 - Lake Erie Winery Tour 

Woke to drizzly day, but true to form, John & Connie had a perfect day planned & about 11:30am!

First stop was Woodbury Vineyards.  We were the only customers.  Not an exciting start, but the girl greeting us was friendly & personable.  She explained that the sweet wines were their most popular (bad sign for us!! since none of us like sweet wines), and highly recommended the Peanut Butter (wine?  Really??), so Connie & I decided to try it.  None of the tastings were particularly exciting for us.  And the Peanut Butter was awful.  John & Connie hadn't been there before & doubt they would come back!  Okay - on to the next!!

Next stop was Merritt.  A very familiar name & one of John's favorites.  We enjoyed the wine tasting & the indoor venue also.  Very eclectic with many interesting things for sale & great presentation of their product.  It had quite a few more customers - partly because of the location & partly because it was a bit later in the day - better for tasting!  I especially liked their Pino Grigio, although we didn't buy any.  I got an extra tasting of the XTO Slushie Mix & bought some of that!

As we were already seeing "pink elephants" (ha!!), we decided to take a short break from the wine & ate some snacks while driving through the Lake Erie State Park.  Since it was now pouring rain, they didn't charge us to enter & we didn't get out of the car, just circled around & took a look at the RV camping area & got a view of the rough & tumble Lake Erie.  Couldn't see across to the Canadian shore, but we waved at all our friends over there anyway!!

The next stop was by far my favorite!!!!  It was 21 Brix.  We even loved the glasses for our tasting so much that we bought a couple.  They are now our daily wine glasses.  We had a delightful server, Cindy.  She was a kindergarten teacher by profession & we enjoyed chatting while tasting multiple wines.  We bought a Pinot Grigio & Hibner's bought some too.  

Our last stop of the day was Mazza Chautauqua Cellars/Five & 20 Spirits & Brewing.  It was a very different tasting with a range of wines, beers, & spirits.  Definitely had the biggest crowd & it was the most expensive.  We sat indoors due to the rain, but it was packed outside on the covered deck and they had a live band out there.  It was too noisy for us & unfortunately we didn't really care for anything we tasted.  They had somehow even managed to screw up the Lemon Cello.  Amazing.  Assuming they were to generalized, but like I mentioned, our opinions must have been in the minority!

On back to John & Connie's for a beautiful evening!  The clouds had drifted away & we enjoyed dinner outside!  Awesome!