Page 70 of Returning to Everton

“That’s what the sign says,” he tells me sarcastically with a crooked smile on his handsome face.

“Shut up! I’ve never been to a winery before! I’ve always wanted to though.” I lean over and kiss his cheek. “Thank you, Hudson. I’m so excited!”

He chuckles as he drives down the dirt road. “You’re welcome, baby. I was hoping you’d never been. I haven’t been to one before either, so we get to experience it for the first time together.”

I grab his hand off of my thigh and squeeze it tight. “The first of many firsts.”

As we drive down the long dirt road, we can see acres upon acres of vineyards. It’s so beautiful and peaceful out here. It’s astounding how many grapes they grow here. I can’t wait to take a tour of the whole place. We finally reach the end of the road and see a gorgeous Tuscan chalet. The walls are made entirely of sandstone in various shades, and the roof is all terracotta tiles.

We park in the empty parking lot and look around in awe as we walk to the front door. Hudson holds the door open for me until I finally stop staring and walk inside. I blush and smile at him in thanks. The inside is just as beautiful as the outside. It’s big and open with high ceilings. We walk up to the counter where there is a woman waiting to greet us.

“Hello! Welcome to Moonlight Merlot Winery. What brings you in today?”

“We unexpectedly had the day off, and I thought it would be fun to tour the local winery,” Hudson replies. “Sounds like the perfect first date doesn’t it?”

“Oh absolutely! Especially in the middle of a Monday. We don’t get too many guests at this time of the day, so it should be a nice peaceful tour,” she tells us. “Did you want to do a wine tasting too?”

I look up at Hudson with big puppy dog eyes. He chuckles at me and shakes his head. “Of course, we’d love to do a tasting as well.”

“Great! Well, then take a seat and I’ll go find our tour guide for you.”

We sit down at the cute bistro table and wait. Surprisingly we don’t have to wait long before a middle-aged woman walks over to our table. We stand up in anticipation of her greeting.

“Hi, I’m Halley, I’m going to be your tour guide for today.”

“It’s nice to meet you, Halley. I’m Hudson and this is my girlfriend, Rowen.” Hudson wraps his arm around my waist as he introduces me as his girlfriend for the first time. I smile up at him, I could get used to this.

Halley smiles at us. “Ahh young love.” Hud and I both laugh because we are definitely not young. “Okay, we’ll start our tour in the fields where you will learn about the grapes we grow and how we harvest them. How’s that sound?”

“Sounds great!” I tell her excitedly. I’ve always wanted to learn more about the wine I love to drink. I'm so glad Hudson thought to take me here.

We make our way back outside and Halley leads us to the vineyard.

“Now, I don’t know if you noticed driving in, but we growa lotof grapes,” Halley jokes. “In fact, the vineyard covers a hundred acres.”

“Wow. Thatisa lot of grapes! I was wondering how much grapes y’all grew when I saw them driving in. They seemed to go on and on.” I’m in awe at how big their vineyard is.

Halley shows us around the vineyard and points out the different grapes and explains what grapes are used for what types of wine. I’m surprised to learn most wine is named after the grapes used to make it. I may drink wine, but I’ve never claimed to actually know anything about it.

Next, we tour the wine production facility, where Halley shows us how they crush the grapes. I find it interesting that after the grapes are crushed for white wine, they’re then pressed to remove all the skin, seeds, and solids, to leave only juice. All the pieces of the grapes for red wine stay to garner color, flavor, and additional tannins during fermentation. We learn all about the fermentation process too.

With our tour over, it’s finally time for our tasting, so we head outside to the trellis covered patio. It’s so gorgeous out here. There’s something growing on one of the walls of the winery. I have no idea what it’s called, but it covers the whole wall in green and makes it feel homey. It’s definitely relaxing on this patio. I like that it’s not covered so we can feel the cooling breeze blow by. Thank god it’s not too hot out today.

I sit across from Hudson at the little bistro table as we wait for Halley to come back with our tasting. “Thank you for bringing me here, Hud. I’m having so much fun! I had no idea wine making was so simple yet complicated at the same time,” I say.

“Just like you. Simply complicated,” he jokes and I lean across the table to smack him.

Just then, Halley comes walking up, along with the woman that greeted us when we got here. Halley is carrying a tray with two wine glasses in one hand and a bottle of wine in the other. The other woman is carrying a stainless-steel bucket that she places on the side of the table between Hudson and me.

“Okay, for wine tastings, you always start with whites before reds,” Halley informs us. “When doing a wine tasting, the order in which you try the wine is important. You want to start with white because red wine may dull your senses and you won’t be able to taste the subtleties of the white wines. You also want to try dry wine before sweet because the sweet wine will cause the dry wine to become more acidic. We’re going to try some of our 2018 Riesling. Riesling is a tricky wine, because it can vary between dry and sweet. This batch falls on the dry side, so it’s okay to start with.”

Halley pours each of us a little bit of wine in our glasses, then places them back on the table. “Now, always hold the wine glass from the stem,” she instructs, so we both pick up our glasses by the stem. “Good, now give it a gentle swirl.”

I slowly swirl the wine in my glass. Hudson swirls his a little too much and splashes some over his cup. I giggle. “Hud! Don’t swirl so hard,” I shake my head.

“Okay, now that your wine is sufficiently swirled,” Halley chuckles, “Gently,”she emphasizes looking at Hudson and I can’t help but laugh again. “Bring the glass to your nose and smell the wine. What do you smell?” she asks rhetorically.

“Now, take a small sip and hold it in your mouth. Swish it around a little so you can really taste it, then spit it in the bucket.”

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