Rant #1,719: The Wine Country

Last Friday, when I was not writing this Rant, I also took the day off from work.

Usually, when I take a day off from work, it has to do with some medical situation that I have to satisfy, such as a major eye examination.

Well, this was the first day off that I have had in some time that had to do with pleasure.

My wife had been off all week, my son was off for a few days, so it was now my turn to step up to the plate, and take a well-deserved day off from the constant drudgery of work.

I told my wife that I would only take the day off if we were going to do something that was relatively "vacationy," and that is exactly what we did.

We did something that I don't think we had done in years, and I do mean quite a long time.

We went to the wine country of Long Island.

If you have never done this, you have to go way out on the Island, and you see just how very long it is.

One way to do this is to take the Long Island Expressway to the very end, and then get off the roadway and just basically go straight.

You go through towns like Riverhead, Cutchogue and Laurel, and then you see all the wineries that pop up on this trail

It doesn't even look like Long Island there, it looks more like a somewhat modern day Mayberry than it does being part of Suffolk County.

Yes, as people have moved there they have built up there--there are more shopping centers than I can ever remember, and there are the requisite 7-Elevens and Dunkin' Donuts and McDonald's too--but up through Greenport, you really wonder whether you are in Suffolk County anymore, or if you have tripped back in time to the 1950s.

Anyway, we stopped at three wineries--one was Pindar, one was a new one called Coffee Pot Wineries, and other one was Raphael--and they had wine tastings at each one. For a nominal fee, the taster could get four or five glasses of wine, from which, presumably, the taster would buy at least one bottle to take home.

I am not a wine drinker--or an alcohol drinker, for that matter--but my wife is, so at each stop, she tasted a bouquet of wines, and yes, we bought one bottle of what she liked at each winery.

Even though I didn't drink a drop, I had a good time, and my son and I kept each other company while my wife tasted her wines.

Three stops were the limit for us, because after those stops and all that wine--mixed in with near 100 degree heat--my wife got a little tipsy, or on the edge of being so.

We ate some lunch, and she felt much better.

We didn't stay in wine country for that long, but there are literally dozens of wineries to visit on both the North and South Fork, and you can spend an entire day going from one winery to another. Some have tours, where you can learn about how the wine is processed, from grape to bottle.

And you can also walk around, and take in the sights.

In other words, if you want a relaxing day, a day to forget about work and the usual stuff you worry about during the week, Long Island's wine country--among the best known in the world--is a good place to visit.

We had other things to do during the day, so after a few hours, we left, but the three of us had a fine time, even though only one of us drank a drop of wine.

And that, to me, is the secret of the place.

Even though it is wine country, you don't have to drink a drop to enjoy yourself.