Trifecta of Perfecta

Today (yesterday, technically) was a fantastic day for The Beverage Snob: coffee, wine, and beer, all in one 24-hour period.

I started the day early (For me. On a Saturday) by getting up at 8:00 a.m., pulling on old clothes and a pair of navy blue galoshes, slapping a floppy straw hat on my head, and running out the door with my all-natural bug spray. Where was I going so garishly attired? You very well may ask. I was going to the vineyard, my friends, to pick myself some grapes.

Some friends of ours work at my favorite local winery, which is just in the middle of its harvest season. They are family owned and operated and are a bit snobbish themselves about the way their vineyard is handled. Which means that all of their grapes are picked by hand, by volunteers. Like me!

So that is why I was traipsing out of my house, wearing funny clothes, at 8:30 in the morning on a Saturday. That's also why I needed to stop by the coffee shop for a perk-me-up latte on the way (They've stopped putting cinnamon on them since I spoke to the manager a few weeks ago. Oh yes, I went there). Their lattes have been getting better lately, and I must commend them for that.

Anyway, the grapes were my main focus this morning, and would be such for the next 3 1/2 hours as 23 other people and I went up row after row in the vineyard, snip snip snipping bunches of grapes with our little sets of shears. Bending over, kneeling, ducking under vines, reaching around to grab that hard to reach cluster of delicious ripe grapes. Avoiding bees and sunburns with our bug spray and big, floppy hats (Though no one's hat was as big or as floppy as mine. Yes, I'm a trend-setter that way).

It was educational and a lot of fun, but absolutely EXHAUSTING. I'm falling over even now, and I had a nap when I got home. But if I keep going back to help pick, my legs are going to look fantastic! It's just a shame bikini season is over... Ahem.

One thing I noticed - and how could I not - was the grapes themselves. They look nothing like the grapes you buy in the store (unless you shell out $4 for Concord grapes, which we did see in Giant tonight), but they look everything like the grapes you've always seen in coloring book pictures your entire life: small, perfectly round berries hanging in tight, cone-shaped clusters. They really look quite a bit like blueberries, but taste like the sweetest grapes you're ever had. The vineyard manager let me try one, and aside from the fact that I forgot these grapes had seeds and was forced to perform spitting maneuvers in public, it was absolutely delicious.

The frothy cap on the day's adventures was my discovery of a beer I actually like - a completely shocking revelation for anyone who knows me and has experienced my many ill-fated attempts at beer tasting in the past. Beer has been for me the bane of every picnic and social gathering since I became of drinking age, if not simply for the fact that I hate the taste. And perhaps the real culprit isn't beer in general but the mass-produced American-style lagers so prevelant at these occasions (and the fact that our neighbor growing up was a huge redneck who would hunt deer, skin them on his back porch, then drink cans of Coors while sitting shirtless on the stoop. Bad mental pictures, believe me...).

At any rate, tonight I tried a German-style wheat ale that completely blew away all my preconceptions about beer. It was light, frothy, had terrific body and a pleasant aftertaste, and was dry and fruity with a hint of spice. Wow. It's locally brewed, too, so now I'm becoming slightly obsessed with the idea of visiting the brewery for a tasting. Oh, and it comes in cans. Back porch, here I come...