Winery tours!

Last weekend, Jason & I went to several wineries to celebrate my friend's mother's birthday. Did you get that? Jason's birthday was Sunday, so we threw him in the birthday mix. Since there were about 25 people going on this trip, we rented two vans and our hosts drove their truck. Here's our sweet ride along with TJ aka "Lil Pup", our communicator.


One of the hosts, Deseere aka "Big Dog" was located in the lead truck:

And her awesome driver/husband, Dre:


The first stop was Sister Creek Winery in Sisterdale, TX. You may notice that many people are dressed in green and are wearing ridiculous hats. You may also notice that Jason & I are neither wearing green nor wearing ridiculous hats. The theme was St. Patty's day since that was the birthday girl's birthday, but J & I didn't get the memo. Oh darn. I must also mention that it was really cold that day and none of us ever took our coats off!

We had been to Sister Creek before, so we didn't partake in the tasting here. I'm a recessionista just trying to save a buck! Here is the birthday girl, Laura, getting her first taste:

After the tasting, we toured the tiny little winery and took the obligatory picture inside the cask room.

And now behold! The best wine that Sister Creek makes: a Muscat Canelli. Yum!


After Sister Creek, we headed to Grape Creek Vineyards in Fredericksburg, TX to partake in more wine and have some lunch. Our awesome hosts are friends with the owner so we were able to use their room (normally you have to rent it) for free for our lunch.


I really liked this winery. They have a lot of wines that I likes (red, white...you name it) and it's very pretty. Since I did the "big" tasting, I also got a free wine glass. Now that's quality, folks.

Here's the group again, with a few more people that met up with us:

At this point, our hosts were slightly distressed that some of the vehicles were having trouble following the lead truck. Hello....the lead truck is supposed to be in front! So, they decided to do something about their dilemma and make it really, really easy on everyone:

After clarifying our directionality, we were able to move onto the next winery, Becker Vineyards in Stonewall, TX. This particular vineyard does all their tastings outside. Thank goodness they had those awesome burner-things that you can stand under. I think I spent most of the time under that thing.

This was the wine setup and the tables extended about 20 feet. I may or may not be exaggerating since I was too lazy to personally measure this.

Somehow, the birthday girl found a "boyfriend" who took a liking to her. I don't have the picture, but I may or may not be able to confirm that the "boyfriend" caught her off-guard stole a kiss from her. I think he was jealous of all the green. To throw everyone off, Laura got Deseere into the picture.


After the shenanigans at Becker, we headed to Torre de Pietra in Fredericksburg, TX. This is the only picture we have of the winery -- er, birdbath -- because the place was CROWDED. It was a small building and since they were so full, there was no way that 25 people would be able to get their wine on in a timely fashion.


So we moved on to the Woodrose Winery in Stonewall, TX. Before we could ever even enter the winery, Deseere had to stop and bust out singing, "Don't Stop Believin" which was reminiscent of some movie that I can't name right at this moment. Possibly the Wedding Singer.


After some a capella Journey, we went inside for more tastings!

Some of the wines here were a bit too fruity and sweet for my taste, but I LOVED the Port wine (the Tawny Port). It was a little sweet, but not overkill and it was KILLER with some chocolate chips. You must go try this one. We got the VIP treatment and had the winery workers bring the wine out to us on the deck at our tables. How much better does it get? Does it look like we're having a good time?

In between tastings, we played "Would You Rather" which is an interesting game. We decided to just throw the rules aside and simply read cards. This game gives you situations and you have to choose which you would rather do. Here's two questions that we decided to throw out because no one wanted to answer:

• Would you rather die saving someone's life or let that person die but lose your hand?
• Would you rather change your sex or your sexuality?

These were a bit too far on the deep end, but you get what I mean about weird. Here's part of the group yelling out what they would rather do:

After our tastings were finished, we got to be VIPs because we were able to bring in some catered BBQ. Yup, you guessed it, our awesome hosts knew this owner, too. And let me tell you that the BBQ was yummy! We also toured the winery itself, but strangely enough, those pictures are missing. (I was not the photographer this time). When we returned, we all bought some wine and shared the love as you see here:

Birthday girl Laura not only had to show off her glass that appropriately said "Winey Bitch," she also had to show off her St. Patty's day green socks:

As the day neared an end and the wine bottles emptied, we begrudgingly headed back to our pimp vans to go back to San Antonio. I think Jenny had the right sentiment here:

The lesson here is: Wine. Is. Good.