Whine, wine, wine - Part 2

Wine? Aplenty. But still did I whine.

I was just getting over being sick, but still I was tired. My brain stuck in worry-cycle. Whine.

And then, suddenly, the bachelorette party that I'd long been dreaming of actually came to be.
Saturday morning, I woke up, showered, dressed, packed, made coffee and jumped in my newly acquired parents' car. (It is quite possible to live without a car in Toronto when you live so close to work. But whenever my parents head out on vacation, I meet them at the airport kiss n ride and take off in their car to keep it at my place. I then pick them back up after their trip and no one ever has to pay parking!)

I picked up the bride-to-be, Raye, and her friends Christine and Natalie and we headed to wine country for my second weekend in a row. Aside from my parents' crappy car and my inability to speak (stupid crappy voice!), we had a lovely trip down chatting about some of my favourite things: real estate, finances, relationships.

We arrived at the B&B in St. Catharines in perfect time. It was beautiful. I highly recommend Ridley Gate Manor Bed & Breakfast. It was exactly what we wanted: a place all of us eight ladies could stay with some privacy and access to a backyard with grill.

After depositing our bags and praising our various gods for the gorgeous weather, we climbed in the Crush van with our driver, Roger, at the helm. Raye characteristically gave us gifts. I ate my chocolate immediately. We visited completely different wineries.

Peninsula Ridge was our first stop. The first wine was a 2008 Viognier ($14.95? Yes please!)
"Nose is very perfumed with notes of orange blossom, lime and apricot. Apricot follows through to the palate with hints of pepper and nutmeg. Rich and round mouth feel." I describe it as perfection in a bottle. I bought a bottle, of course. I should have bought more. Right after our tasting, we had lunch there at the winery's restaurant. It included wine and the food was quite good (not Inn on the Twenty stylz, but still good). The grounds were beautiful.

From there, we visited Malivoire, where we did our facility tour (the picture above is from there), then Sue Ann Staff Winery, then Vinelands (where I did have some interesting ice wine voka drink, Vice, which gave me an idea of what to do with the ice wine I still have in my fridge.) But nothing compared to the Peninsula Viognier.

Back to the B&B where we hung out in bathing suits (or, in my case, dresses) around the pool, drinking wine, eating cheese and talking shit. Or, in Kat's case, taking fun photos.

Our last lady arrived (Elizabeth) and it was time to take care of dinner. We all took out our contributions to the meal and poured more wine and sat down. It was really quite a fantastic meal -- and you couldn't beat the price! On top of that, the B&B's gardens were amazing. I wish I had time to do that... Actually, if I had time to do that, my guess is I'd use it to do something else.

We finally moved inside for dessert of peanut butter ice cream pie (!!!) and mango-banana sorbet (which I couldn't fit in my belly at the time but ate for breakfast instead, don't worry).

We sat around the living room with, you guessed it, more wine and more shit-talking. We played a game where we guessed who was the teenage track star, who plays Santa at family gatherings and whose feet have real odour problems. One of those was me -- you can guess which one.

I held out as long as I could before heading off to bed. The next morning, I was the first one up. I savoured a cup of tea in the garden, reading the paper, waiting for the other girls to stir. We had a lovely breakfast (not just the sorbet...) and it was finally time to go. It was quite sad to say good-bye to the girls as I had such a great time with them.

Aside from wishing for more of the Viogner, it was the perfect bachelorette party.

From whine to wine to refreshed.