Massachusetts

Staying true to our plan of a day trip a weekend, yesterday we embarked on another New England adventure, this time a visit to our favorite local winery, Travessia Urban Winery in New Bedford, plus a few extra stops that made for a perfect day. We were joined by our soon-to-be-married friends Adrienne and Matt; wine and beer tasting along the Coastal Wine Trail, for those of you in MA and RI, is a great way to spend a day catching up with friends.

Our first stop was lunch in New Bedford at Ginger Grill and Tea House, a great Korean restaurant just a few doors down from Travessia.  This was our second time eating at Ginger Grill, and we once again loved the food, the clean, calming atmosphere, the prices, and the friendly staff. Starting your day full of fresh, flavorful food from Ginger Grill is the way to go.

I had the vegetarian Bibim noodles with a complimentary side of carrot kimchi salad and a pot of spicy ginger tea.

The flavors were so bright and clean, and I felt really good after lunch. An added bonus, the compostable plates!

Once we had eaten, we walked down to Travessia for a tasting. While I love all of their wines, I was most excited to try a new release, Dilemma. Unsurprisingly, we loved this wine, which is a mix of 60% Pinot Grigio and 40% Pinot Noir, both Massachusetts-grown. It is an impressive, well-balanced wine with a nice, almost mouthwatering acidity and a hint of sweetness. With the big movement toward local food, it is incredibly exciting to have access to such high quality wines that are grown and made just under an hour from Boston.

After we finished our Travessia tasting, we decided that, since we were so close, we would check out the Just Beer brewery and tasting room down the road in Westport.

Just Beer, formerly the Buzzard’s Bay Brewing Company, is a small brewery on a beautiful property, offering tastings on Saturdays only during the Spring. While we visited, we tasted both a light beer, their Golden Flounder, and a slightly darker, more amber ale, Moby D.

Not usually a fan of light beers, I did enjoy the Golden Flounder and think it would be perfect for a hot summer day. But we liked the Moby D the best and decided to bring some home with us.

Our next stop was right down the road, Westport Rivers Winery. If you live in Boston, you may have tried one of Westport Rivers’ delicious sparkling wines. I definitely have enjoyed their Blanc de blancs on more than one occasion, but they have so much more than sparkling wine!

The Westport Rivers tasting room and store are located in a beautiful old farmhouse overlooking the currently bare vineyards. There will be leaves of green someday, New England. Someday.

The tasting menu for the day was a mix of still and sparkling wines including what ended up being my favorites, the Westport Brut, Rkatsiteli, and the Pineau de Pinot dessert wine. I loved the toasty, brioche-like nose and flavors of the Brut. The Rkatsiteli, besides being fun to pronounce (the R is its own syllable!) is a grape originally from the country of Georgia and produces a fresh lemony wine with some nice mineral notes, and the Pineau de Pinot is a lovely pink dessert wine that is not too sweet at all. The tasting room staff recommended it mixed with bubbly for a nice little cocktail. Yum.

We finished up our day with a drive over to the lovely Horseneck Beach and an early dinner/second lunch at The Back Eddy. I think we were all a little tired from the fresh air and tastings at this point, and it was nice to sit back with some clam chowder while looking out at these views. I can not wait until summer!

New England has so much to offer, and I love that I can have days like yesterday to remind me just how lucky we are to live here.

Have you ever been to a local winery or brewery where you live?