First Time Winery Experience
Have you ever had the urge to do something spontaneous, reckless, and fun with your friends? I get that urge all the time! I’ve had plenty of daydreams about just getting in the car and driving somewhere I’ve never been to and with no idea what awaits me. Well I’m proud to say I did that last November.
Me & the besties!
It all began when my best friend, Amber, was getting a new job. We knew we weren’t gonna have as much time to hang out with her new schedule. As a last hurrah I decided to plan a fun getaway trip for us to spend some quality time together. For hours I looked up places that weren’t too far for us to take a day trip. Then the lightbulb went off! I knew I had to take her to a winery because that was one place she’d been wanting to try for awhile. After searching for the closest and best looking wineries, google brought me to The Warm Springs Winery located in Warm Springs, Ga. The cozy name and rustic pictures made it look like a world away from rural Georgia. It was the perfect place!
So I proceeded to make plans to kidnap my best friend and her boyfriend! I told them I was kidnapping them, because they had no idea where they were being taken to. That weekend I set off to snatch them up! We got off to a late start due to work schedules and outfit changes, but it was a bright, cool fall day full of promises when we did eventually hit the road.
In all honesty, I was anxious that this winery would end up being a disappointment or that we would drive over an hour to find it closed. This was really my first time planning an activity for the three of us by myself, so the anxiety was definitely settling in. We drove for about an hour and a half on back roads, at times only seeing cows and green pastures for miles. My anxiety grew because I was starting to wonder where in the back-country, hillbilly world we were going! We turned onto a long dirt road, passing more cows and fields, until it opened up onto a large vineyard with a cottage-like building in front.
The three of us went inside of the building which had a little tourist, gift shop inside, and I asked our greeter if we could go on the wine tour. However she replied, “we don’t have wine tours here.” My heart literally stops, then sinks, and I realize I have failed in planning this trip that we just drove over an hour to get to. In my mind we were going to walk through the vineyard, drinking wine, and possibly stepping on some grapes like the viral YouTube video of that news reporter who fell over on Fox 5 News while crushing grapes. After my initial heart break, our hostess then says they do offer wine tasting just through the doors to our right. (Just between us, I probably didn’t read carefully on the website as to what they offered, hence our confusion lol)
We stepped across the threshold into a room full of various wine bottles and a bar with a few patrons already in the middle of their wine tasting. My heart slowly started to beat again as I realized the trip was not going to be a waste. You get the choice to make your own charcuterie board for a small fee, but we skipped that and sat at a small table in the back. Behind us, the large windows and glass doors gave us an amazing view of a back porch and the vineyard in the distance.
There was one guy serving the entire room and let me just say, he was the nicest and most interesting server I’d ever met. His friendly and chatty conversations on a broad range of topics while in-between wine pouring put us at ease immediately.
Me on my way to tipsy (you can tell by the way I’m smiling lol)
But let the record show, we had no idea what to do with the little sheet with all of the wines listed on it. To help out first-time winery goers, let me explain. As you taste each wine sample you rate the wines. 1 = Not my type, 2= That was nice, and 3= Perfection. We sampled about 10 wines, but as the designated driver, I stopped around # 7 or 8 because I could feel myself getting a bit tipsy. Most of the wines I enjoyed, and the only ones I didn’t were the spicy ones with peppers. I can’t imagine anyone drinking those for pleasure.
When the tasting was over we were given the option to buy any bottles of wine that we liked, and I purchased my two favorites, Blackberry ($22) and Key Lime Vanilla ($17). With Christmas around the corner I ended up gifting my dad the Blackberry wine, which he absolutely fell in love with. He is now a Warm Springs Winery fan and has ordered around $100 worth of wine from them.
It was dusk when we left happy off of wine and good times. We found an Irish pub to eat dinner at and then headed back home. My initial anxiety of giving my friends a good time had disappeared as they both thanked me and raved about how fun the winery experience was. I’d say it was a successful kidnapping and has gone down as one of our favorite memories together. So don’t be afraid to step out of your comfort zone, try new things, go places you’ve never heard of, and make unforgettable memories with the people you love.
If you’d like to check out Warm Springs Winery and their two locations or try some of their delicious wines, click on the link below to their Instagram! https://instagram.com/warmspringswinery?utm_medium=copy_link
