School started earlier this week for both of us. M will not teach much more this semester, as she is taking medical leave for eight weeks starting on September 8. She will be having treatments starting then and ending some time in late October that will make her feel intermittently unwell. Therefore, what better day for a sudden winery tour in NJ than today!
We started around 10:15 and went first to Cream Ridge winery. Actually, we first got slightly lost by following some signs instead of Google Maps; the signs were not comprehensive. But this ended up being more fun than otherwise, because we stumbled upon an ice cream place that was open at 11 am!
After that we did make our way to the Cream Ridge winery, where we had a tasting and a snack on their nice, shaded porch, on rocking chairs.
The next stop was at the Hopewell Valley Vineyards. There we had another tasting, and got a glass of wine each for lunch, which we had brought with us (already seen in the photo above). They have a nice deck in this winery, overlooking the vines, and we spent an enjoyable couple of hours having lunch, eating and drinking our glasses (I had Chambourcin, M had Chardonnay) and reading books we had brought along. Hey, we made sure to spend some time absorbing the wine so we would be safe drivers on the way back home.
