We got ready around noon and headed to a local farm that had opened a winery a few years ago and had been rated the best winery in Connecticut for 2010, Jones Winery (and farm). This was one of the few “traditional farms” I’ve been to that actually had embraced technology and cool design as well as keeping their traditions and country feel, they had a Foursquare sticker in their window and some cool looking designs for their various farms (strawberry, blueberry, pumpkin, and Christmas tree). They had two wine tasting options, a dry and off-dry, I opted for the off dry (all whites and fruit wines), whereas Jeremy and his mom opted for the dry tasting (had three red wines in place of the fruit wines). All of the wines were pretty good, some were a bit simple in their body and flavor but overall they were quite tasty, and we ended up buying a sparking strawberry wine to bring with us to dinner at Bob and Meredith’s (Eileen’s brother and his wife) for dinner.

We arrived to a great appetizer spread of Brie and Gouda cheese with crackers, home-smoked salmon and sausage, fresh bacon guacamole and fresh green chile salsa with tortilla chips (Meredith is quite the accomplished cook). We enjoyed wine on their deck overlooking the creek (the weather was fantastic, mid-70s, a breeze and shady) chatting together on a range of topics until it was time for dinner…salad with a lime, honey vinaigrette, grilled porterhouse steak, bean and rice salad, fresh bakery rolls (from a cute local bakery), and roasted asparagus. For dessert, lemon sorbet with fresh berries, light refreshing, and you can never go wrong with raspberries.

After enjoying lots of wine at Bob and Meredith’s we’re opting to have a chill evening tonight at Jeremy’s mom’s place, and probably relatively early bed before heading into “the city” (aka New York City) tomorrow.

Photos: Jones Winery Flickr Set

We got through security and arrived at our gate with about an hour and change to spare then were informed the plane out of Philadelphia was delayed by 40 minutes. A lot of folks who had connecting flights had to rebook on different airlines or fly out later in the weekend unfortunately, we were lucky in that we had about two hours between flights so we had a bit of a cushion and were able to even have time for a beer (Magic Hat #9) and a snack at a little cafe right across from our gate in Philadelphia.

Our flight to New Haven was on a tiny prop plane (not Jeremy’s favorite option), it was rather loud so Jeremy and I opted to simultaneously watch an episode of Alton Brown’s “Feasting on Asphalt” on our iPads for the duration of the flight (it looked totally geeky I’m sure but it worked quite well once we got them playing at the same time). We landed in the (tiny!) Tweed New Haven airport and were picked up by Jeremy’s mom Eileen (we walked off the plane and she was waiting on the other side of the chain link fence, yes fence, although we did have to walk through the “terminal” to get to the parking lot) and headed back to her condo.

Even though it was late we decided to stay up and chat and catch up out on Eileen’s back porch with a glass of wine (Lobster Cove “Life’s a Beach” 2008 Chardonnay, really nice, citrusy, unoaked Chardonnay) and cheese and pita chips (I was hungry so this was awesome). Her condo backs up to the woods and a little stream so it was really nice sitting out there (and very few bugs, unlike Williamsburg) and after chatting we headed to bed around midnight. Tomorrow’s plan is to visit a local winery around lunchtime then head to Jeremy’s uncle’s place on Burr Creek in the afternoon for a cookout.