Belle River 2007

What else goes well with beautiful sunny (and very warm) days, calm waters, wonderful people, and a great marina? An even better wine tasting tour of three area wineries while riding on a hopping red trolley bus led by a very funny tour guide, Nate from Britain.

Friday’s wine tale gathering at the marina pavilion was exquisite. A variety of choice wines donated by each of the 14 MRYC crews attending were available for tasting. Add this to delicious appetizers and deserts while watching a picturesque sunset followed by a host of bright stars, made this evening one to remember (and one of the few dry weekends this cruise season).

The next day, a full egg croissant, sausage, and ham breakfast cooked by the hosts (and more wine of course) was a feast for a hungry crowd. During the day some went swimming at the area sandy beach, read books, played cards or just relaxed.

Near noon, we ate a quick lunch at the pavilion. Then when you thought that it just doesn’t get any better, we boarded the “Desire” trolley for the first family run winery, Muscedere. The owner explained how the grapes are nurtured, pruned, selected and squeezed while sampling five of his best wines. Of course many whole bottles re-boarded the trolley. The second stop, Colio Estates, in Essex was a high volume producer of many popular wines. Here we saw the large squeeze machines (no not the husbands), storage vats and people running around in funky blue shoe covers. More samples, including the ICE wines for after dinner desert.

Our final tour was the Erie Shore winery, where we learned about the area and some new variety wine tasting. Then a decadent home cooked meal with fresh local salads, mouth watering steak and chicken with mom’s special blueberry cake was the course for the evening. The evening was just perfect (or was it the wine that made us feel like it) riding back singing Beatles songs and stopping at a McDonald's and Tim Horton's for ice cream or desert.

Sunday was another warm sunrise wrapping up a most enjoyable weekend eating muffins, bagels and sweet rolls. The whole trip was simply the great!

By Ron DiDomenico