Today was a “free” day. Do whatever pleases you. We started
the day with a great pancake breakfast from our staff. Then each of us was able
to do some of the personal things that we weren’t able to do while on the many
wonderful motorcoach tours of the cities we visited.
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Enjoying pancakes and sausage |
After lunch, we set out to visit the local wineries. Being
from CA, the Nebraska wines were nothing we had heard about, so we didn’t know
what to expect, but we were open and not at all assuming. We visited three
wineries and were very pleasantly surprised. First we went to Soaring Wings
Vineyard in Springfield and then went to James Arthur Vineyards in Raymond.
This winery was the largest and the most commercial of the three. I loved it
and bought a metal rooster to put all my wine corks into. It will be a great
reminder of the great wines we tasted in NE.
Then we went to Wind Crest Winery, a small family winery and
met the wine maker Dale Lilyhorn. He was so knowledgeable of the local wines
and how they compared to the CA wines we were used to. We learned so much and
spent quite a bit of time talking about wine. The Nebraska wine grapes are
mostly French/ American hybrids developed by an agronomist from Wisconsin to
survive the cold and windy winters. I saw only one French clone (Syrah) which
was acknowledged as under-performing and causing extra work in the vineyard.
At the end of the day, we returned to Soaring Wings Vineyard
to listen to a concert, eat some cheese and French bread and have another glass
of wine. We had a wonderful day and purchased many bottles of NE wine, some of
which may make it back to share with our son-in-law who is a wine maker in
Calaveras County CA.
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Bob and Carolyn Henkel |
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