Musings
an Online Journal of Sorts

By Alyce Wilson

Longwood Meetinghouse

While The Gryphon's big Valentine's Day present to me this year was helping me pay for my advanced improv class at ComedySportz, my present to him was paying for him to take a class through the so-called Fermentation School run by Philadelphia wine and cheese emporium, Tria.

This particular class was a session on wine taught by the head wine maker at Chaddsford Winery. As a bonus, the class members received a pass for a wine tasting at the winery, so we made use of it on Saturday.

We had some trouble finding it, because we were confused about how far out Route 1 the winery was. When we discovered it was close to Longwood Gardens, I asked if we could go a little further and stop in the Longwood Meetinghouse so I could inquire about portraits of two of my Quaker ancestors that hangs on the back wall, Isaac and Dinah Mendenhall, who ran a station on the Underground Railroad.

The meetinghouse, which is a visitor's center for Chester County, was staffed by a gray-haired Baby Boomer who was happy to let us take some pictures of the portraits, as well as one of me with the portraits. Then she gave me the contact information to use to find out about getting my own copy of the portraits.

Before we left, we talked a little bit about what the staffer knows about some people who share my grandmother's maiden name, although it didn't sound familiar, and I'm not certain it was my branch. She also told me about how she'd traced her family all the way back to the servant class in England.

My grandmother also traced us back to the ancestral home in Wales, which she photographed on one of her genealogical journeys. There's no telling whether it's still standing, however.

This time, we had more luck finding the winery. I took a picture of The Gryphon in front of the main building as we headed inside.

We paid for the wine tasting for one of us, along with adding on extra for both of us to participate in the barrel tasting in the cellar.

We had only tried one of the wines, the '05 Pinot Grigio, in their tasting room when they announced the 2 p.m. barrel tasting session was beginning, so we followed them downstairs, passing some beautiful silver vats where the white wine is fermented, down some old wooden steps to the cellar area, where about five or six barrels sat at one end.

An assistant gave us our first wine to taste. She was dipping the wine from the barrels with a glass tube, which would fill with wine and which she could then use to pour the wine into a glass.

I'm not certain I can remember everything that we tried, but they were wines that were still in the process of being made. The wine maker who talked about the wines taught us a lot about the wine making process. I'm pretty certain we tried the Miller Estate White, the Proprietors Reserve Red, Merlot and the Merican.

It was interesting to learn how the tastes change over time and about the process of making the wines. For example, I didn't know that the oak barrels wine is aged in are burned inside, and the degree to which they're burned will change the flavor. Also, Chaddsford Winery prefers a fruity taste over an oak taste.

After the barrel tasting, we went back upstairs to complete the tasting of the wines for sale. They had a chalk board listing them in a certain recommended order, since it's better to go from dry wines to sweeter wines.

We found our favorites. Among them, the Merlot, the Pinot Noir and the Proprietor's Reserve Chardonnay. I also liked some of the sweeter dessert wines, such as the Niagara and the Spiced Apple Wine, though we didn't buy any of them.

As we tasted the wine, we talked about what we could taste in them and whether we liked them, which was a nice time together. When we were done tasting the wines, we went to the shop to decide what to take home. We bought one bottle of Merlot, one of Proprieter's Reserve Red and two of the Proprietor's Reserve Chardonnay. In addition, we bought two espresso flavored chocolates, whose proceeds go to a local homeless shelter.

We were ready for an early dinner, so we stopped at an Irish restaurant Kildare's, at the Granite Run Mall in Media, where we'd eaten once before. I wanted something light and was happy to find mini crab cakes on their lunch menu, which were served with greens and asparagus. That, plus a serving of tomato basil soup, hit the spot.

After dinner, we browsed the stores in the mall. I bought a pair of chinos at New York & Company that, due to a super sale they were having that day, only cost $5, down from $34. I'm happy to see that wide-leg pants are back, since skinny pants only look good on people who are skinny, and the same goes for bootleg pants.

When we got home, we had a little wedding related task to take care of. We've set a date to do a tasting at our reception site, and we needed to figure out which items from their menu we wanted to taste. We talked about what we might want on the menu. If we were certain about anything, we put it on the list of definite choices. We'll only be tasting those where we're less certain.

Then we relaxed and enjoyed the rest of the evening, sharing a bottle of Merlot.

Copyright 2006 by Alyce Wilson

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