It was a short time until my next winery trip. Seven days to be exact. Some girlfriends and I needed something to do with our Saturday afternoon. One of my friends had recently gotten really big in the the activity they call Letterboxing. It is basically a scavenger hunt where someone has hidden a stamp. They tell you which town it is in and then they give you clues to try and find the stamp. My friend had done several already all over the Midwest so we decided to use this day to find a couple of letterboxes and stop at a couple of wineries. It was October 20th, 2012 and it would be my last winery visit for the year. The four of us met up to head to Snus Hill Winery in Madrid, IA. We made it to our first stop for the day and headed in to try their wine. They had plenty to offer so we dove right in. We informed the lady working that we all preferred semi-sweet to sweet wines and she started us off with their Edelweiss. We told her that was a good starting point for us so next we tried their Sven Red, Raspberry, Kitten, Cat Nip, and finally, High Trestle Taille. I was feeling brave on this particular day and the hostess was telling us about her favorite wine. She said it was their most popular and had just been restocked. I told her I was willing to try it so I did. It was titled Boule de Poils which is similar to a Sauvignon Blanc and I was surprised to discover that it was amazing. They consider it a dry wine but it doesn't put cotton balls in your mouth. It is actually quite smooth and I will definitely say at this current time, it is at the top of my list. It is also safe to say that this might be the first wine that really opened my eyes, and my palate to the dry side of wine. It was my favorite for the day and I will state that this is one of few wines that I have had several times after leaving the winery. But anyway...moving on. We finished up with our samples and finished chatting with our server. She asked us what we had planned for the rest of the day and we filled her in. We told her all about letterboxing and she also told us about this new brewery that had just opened up in Boone, IA. We decided to check it out so we headed on our way with wine bottles in tow and moved along to our next destination.
We decided to try and find the letterbox that was in this town before stopping at the brewery. The letterbox was an easy one to find. Once we found the house, it was only a few short clues that quickly lead us to the hiding spot. We took their stamp mark and left ours and went on our way as if we had never been there. It was a quick drive to our next stop. We found Boone Valley Brewery in the middle of town. We stopped in and the place was empty. We introduced ourselves to the owner and sat ourselves at the bar and decided to try and couple of flights. I sampled all of their brews and they were quite good. I ended up purchasing a growler of beer that I knew my husband would enjoy. We had a few more stops to go so we decided to keep chugging along.
Our last winery visit for the day was to Prairie Moon Winery in Ames, IA. This was another winery that happened to be hosting a wedding on the day of our visit. It was just starting to get pretty busy when we arrived at our destination. We hurried in to the tasting room and thankfully, the wedding was in the back so most of the people were out of the way but the tasting area was still quite busy. We had to wait a short time but eventually got up to the bar and a gentleman started helping us with some samples. We tried their Prairie Sauterne, Moon Beam White, Blushing Moon, and their Glo. All of their wines were very good. The people just kept packing in so it took some time to get all of our samples. I would say it was worth the wait though. We enjoyed ourselves and we took off with a few bottles to take home.
Our day was almost done, we had one more letterbox to try and find and then we could start heading back. This letterbox took us down by the Iowa State campus and over to the veterinary center. The clues for this letterbox where much more elaborate so it took us quite a bit longer to find this hidden treasure. After awhile of scavenging through the brush, we finally found it. We got the stamp, brushed ourselves off and headed on our way back home. It had been another long day but quite successful and eventful for a Iowa autumn afternoon.
This will wrap up 2012. I made it to a total of 30 wineries by the end of the year and I've already continued into 2013 but I haven't gotten too far along yet. I've had one trip so far and I have another one coming up this weekend. So now that I can say I am all caught up...keep checking back...there is plenty more to come for 2013.
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