wine Archives - Page 3 of 4 - Preppy Runner

During marathon training, going out on a Saturday night meant either being exhausted from my run that morning and fighting to stay awake or nursing a drink or two because my run was the next morning.

So while I miss training a bit, it’s fun to go out without some aspect of marathon training hanging over my head.

It’s also fun to go out with other runners so you can talk about the marathon just a little more because, really, you haven’t talked about it quite enough yet.

Just in case you don’t recognize her in normal-people clothes, that’s my lovely friend Gia. Her birthday was just before the marathon, so the celebration was held until after the marathon.

By the way, if you don’t read her blog, you should. It’s sweet and smart, just like her. She also KICKED the marathon’s ass–running a 3:48 just a year after having twins! I would like to do that when I grow up, too.

Her friend Kristen (RB, if you read her blog) organized a wine tasting for us. Apparently Otto also offers wine classes, which Gia says is one of her favorite dates with her husband. I also wouldn’t mind going on a date there. Just saying.

Red wine makes me wheezy, so I stuck to a rosÃ© and sauvignon blanc.

It was nice seeing Gia and her friends and all, but I would have been happy just sitting in the corner with this OLIVE OIL GELATO. Otto’s known for their olive oil gelato, so I’d heard of it before and thought it sounded appalling, but after a few glasses of wine, I was happy to stick my spoon in and give it a try. And it was amazing–sweet and savory at the same time.

There was also a vegan cupcake for the birthday girl.

And some cookies.

We stepped outside to look for somewhere to go to grab more food, and saw this limousine waiting. (This was not planned in the least.) RB did a little bargaining with him, and for $5 a head, he agreed to take us to our next destination.

PROM PICTURE.

We had it take us to B Bar, where we ate everything they had.

Somehow, I still woke up starving this morning, so I made Sunflower Butter and Banana Stuffed French Toast (basically Tina’s Almond Butter Stuffed French Toast, but with sunflower butter and bananas instead.)

And now I’m going to yoga, because I should do something active in between meals, I guess.

I guess I’ll find out.

Oh, hello there. My love for carbs knows no bounds. Cocktail party? Cocktail attire?

WHERE ARE THE CARBS?

Okay, breadsticks will do.

Lacey’s giving me bunny ears, but I think she was really trying to plot to steal my breadsticks.

You. will. not. steal. my. carbs.

I sort of like my committee. Last night, the New York Junior League had our annual homecoming party at the house. This is the third time I’ve gone, and it’s always a good time: seeing all the Junior League friends I haven’t seen over the summer, bonding with my committee members, wondering why more guys don’t go to these parties. A house at least 60 percent full of women? Single dudes, please come.

After a late night out, it would have been fun to sleep in, but instead, I woke up early to go on a wine tour.

Meet our chariot for the day. After getting in after 2am last night, we met this bad boy at a little after 8am at 40th and Lex to take us out to Long Island for a wine tour special we bought on Rue La La a few months back.

We got on the bus, and they had bottled water and egg sandwiches waiting for us in a cooler. Exactly what I needed. I ate and promptly went back to sleep, and it was wonderful.

We arrived at Pindar Vineyards half an hour before it opened, so we walked across the street to the pumpkin patch!

Little baby pumpkins!

And funny tombstones. I am a sucker for a bad joke (like, I always laughed at teachers’ jokes because I legit found them funny), so I was giggling shamelessly.

After a little while, we walked back over and it was open! Our package included five tastings at this vineyard.

My favorite was their Premiere Cuvee, a sparkling wine.

I mean, how can you wrong with bubbles? We also tried the Cuvee Rare, but we weren’t crazy about that one either–at least not alone. It tasted like it could be a decent sparkling wine for mimosas, but really, so is Andre, and you can get five bottles of Andre for the cost of one of these bottles.

[What? I’m not still in college? Oh…]

The Autumn Gold and Winter White were pretty good, too. I’m not a big red-wine drinker because I like my wine really cold [and, oh, red wine makes me kind of wheezy sometimes], but none of us liked their reds. They tasted old, and not in an improves-with-age way.

My friends were really focused on picking their next wines. I’m running 20 miles tomorrow, and so I didn’t finish any of my tastes except for the cuvee and instead spent a lot of time here wandering around taking pictures.

Next, we went to Baiting Hollow. The ambiance here was amazing–a huge outdoor picnic area and a live band–but the wine wasn’t quite as good.

But they had food! Including these merlot meatballs, which were really good (but no, Mom, not as good as yours…)

I got these chicken BBQ sliders for lunch, and they came with grapes and potato chips.

They gave us a few hours here, and so we sat and leisurely worked on this bottle of wine and a few more tastings over lunch. I’m not a big Riesling fan in general, but this one was nice and light and not too sweet.

They also had a cute gift shop, with things like…this…

I think it’s a wine bottle holder. And I think it’s hilarious.

The last stop was at Long Island Vodka. There was no way I was going to touch vodka and then try to run 20 miles tomorrow, so I wandered outside to take some more pictures.