Partying With Pino Noir And Other Wines
They are the centerpiece of activity, often the only game in town, and they can become as fun as the most lively bar in other places.
These are the tasting rooms at wineries and towns in wine countries.
Long looked at as stoic places where barely a word above a whisper is uttered, tasting rooms can often make for great nightlife in wine country destinations.
Las Vegas or New Orleans they are not. There are no DJs, pool parties or shots being poured. If there’s a band, it’s a one playing subtle, soft “set the mood” music.
Still, if you hit them on the right day with the right group they can provide for a memorable wine tasting experience far beyond the actual taste of the wine.
Some wineries and tasting rooms are starting to cater to the more lively traveler, rather than the more serious wine drinkers. Dawn’s Dream in Carmel-By-The-Sea CA, for example, has a tub in its tasting room, which makes for interesting selfies as well as laughing it up with other wine tasters.
Carmel is a small, charming small European-style village next to the gorgeous Pebble Beach golf course you’ve seen on TV hundreds of times and it has led a new trend among wineries in California that is the centerpiece of its wine tasting nightlife (even tho the tasting rooms are only open during the daytime).
It has more than a dozen wine tasting rooms, all within a couple of minutes’ walking distance of one another. It even has the Carmel Wine Walk, a passport you buy that gets tastings in seven of the tasting rooms. This keeps people from having to drive to the wineries and every so often on a sunny Saturday, a wine tram rolls into town full of wine-seeking revelers.
In Switzerland’s Lake Geneva region, you can take a train from Lucerne to various wineries, all on a hill overlooking a lake, and be back in town in time for dinner. And more great Swiss wine.
No, there’s no dancing – tho after a few tasting rooms people sometimes to break out into song – or DJs, but done right, there is indeed great nightlife in wine country destinations.
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