apple hill

i love that every time i go to garnet sun winery, they have barrel tastings -- at other wineries, barrel tastings are often only on special events. last fall, when mike and i were up in apple hill getting apples for our thanksgiving pie, we stopped by garnet sun and ended up investing in a wine future. with a wine future, you commit to buying a certain amount of bottles of a future wine that hasn't yet been finished. the great thing about garnet sun's futures is that you get to come back whenever you want to visit your wine as it matures and taste it straight out of the barrel as it gets ready for bottling. we didn't do that, so when i got the call from the winery a couple weeks ago that our wine was ready i was quite surprised. we made the 3-hour drive on saturday to pick up the bottles and we're very pleased with our little baby wine, fresh out the oak womb. it was a little eerie being in apple hill when it wasn't the apple season -- the streets are much more scenic without the apple-induced traffic.