What does this mean?

It means that I cannot order wines from around the country. In fact, you probably cannot either. So if you want your wine, get involved.

• http://www.freethegrapes.org/
• http://www.shipcompliantblog.com/

Maybe this should be the wedge issue in the next election. Thank goodness for Wine Library, but unless I make the two hour drive, I pay tax and shipping.

Andy’s house is at the Winery at Wolf Creek, somewhere near Canton, Akron, and Cleveland, Ohio. Andy and his wife Deanna had a nice spread of different foods and cheeses, and of course, wine. We started with a tour of the vineyard, which included meeting some of the goats (they are experimenting with goat cheese), walking the upper grounds and then to the winery. It was very cool to see all of the different equipment, the large tanks, barrels, and such with Andy describing the process along the way.

After the tour, I tried a whole bunch of different wines from the vineyard and purchased a bunch to take home with me. (My official tasting notes will be on Cork’d as I drink them.) Then it was back to the house for more wine and food and laughter.

Both the adults and children had a blast for hours and we went through A LOT of wine. I’m a light-weight as I usually have one a single glass each night. Needless to say, over the course of the evening more bottles than adults were opened and finished.

Andy was great. He actually helped teach me about certain types of tastes in wines that I could pick out from the wines we were sampling. So, I consider the evening educational.

Today, we are heading home from Ohio, but will stop at Troutman Vineyards to pick up a few more bottles. If you ever are in the area, make sure to stop in, say hello and try a few wines.

In my house, I’m the only one that drinks wine. The kids like to smell the wine, usually claiming that they smell “strawberries on the edge.” Their training will have to wait a bit longer.

My goal was to try a different bottle of wine without repeating for a whole year. Having one glass per night as recommended, each bottle lasted about 4 nights. I kept my tasting notes and reviews on Cork’d, a social networking site for wine lovers.

Along the way I was inspired by WineLibraryTV, a great video podcast where host Gary Vaynerchuk tastes 2-4 wines, 5 nights per week. His podcast is fun and very educational, if not way over the top.

As of this post, I’ve tracked 134 wines in my Cork’d journal, which doesn’t include wines at friends houses or at restaurants or tasting events. What have I learned? I really enjoy tasting different wines!

So the plan is to keep going with the no repeat philosophy for as long as I can manage.