It's the Donegal F*^%@ng Wine Mixer!

As I mentioned in the Out of the Fire post, DB~ went up to the Laurel Highlands and Seven Springs, specifically, last weekend for the Seven Springs Wine Festival.  We went whole hog and got the 2 night stay package and tickets (with complimentary breakfasts!) at the lodge.

DB~ is the wine girl.  I drink wine because she drinks wine.  She knows the difference between chiraz, cabernet, and merlot.  I know the difference between red wine and white wine, mostly because I am not color blind.  She has always wanted to check this event out and I was more than happy to indulge her.

It was a gorgeous weekend to do this -- the weather was sunny and hot, high 80's probably, which may have been a touch hot to drink wine outside.  But it wasn't like we were drinking milk.

Both of us love to people watch and let me tell you, this was a fantastic venue to do so.  There were people who were Serious About Drinking Wine and people who were Seriously Drinking Wine.  As is with most things, we fell somewhere in the middle.

The event had two distinct demographic groups -- Groups of people 30 and under (including bachelorette parties and male/female couples) and groups of people over 50.  I guess the 30-50 year olds were home with their kids, for the most part.  Tons of women wearing sparkly/bejeweled shirts with funny wine sayings on them.  For the most part, everyone was tastefully attired, but there were some "look at me" outfits that probably weren't appropriate to the event.

I don't have the brochure in my possession anymore, but there were probably close to 30 different wineries there and all were more than willing to give you a tiny poured sample of their (typically) 8 different wines.  You each get a glass at the entrance of the event and can get it rinsed out by the sporadically placed water coolers through the event.  Some people were bellied up to the different stands like Norm on Cheers getting 3-5 samples in a row, which is annoying and self-centered when there are a metric ton of people behind them waiting their turn.

The event was well done and smoothly run.  We ended buying some wine from the Glades Pike Winery, our favorite being the Traminette wine -- a lemon-tinged white seasonal wine with some fruit undertones.  There were plenty of people there buying wine by the case (10 bottles), too.  We were cool with 3.

Wine drinkers (wine-o's as DB~ called them) are an interesting sub-set of people.  They're not all named Muffy anymore, either.