A Taste of California in the Country

Bring the Vineyard to your living room with this Wine tasting Date Night

When we were traveling, we had the opportunity to visit a couple of really beautiful vineyards in California. Since there are significantly less vineyards in our area, and we don’t always have the time to go out, we decided to bring the California vineyard experience to our living room.

When you have two toddlers, sometimes it’s hard to get enough alone time to even go to the bathroom by yourself, so we have had to be very creative with our date nights. Having time together is something that has always been so important to us. Between working full time, having kids, trying to cook healthy meals, and all the other things life entails, it can be so easy to push date night and alone time to the side. One thing we love to do when we get really busy, is to have a home date night in our living room after the kids are in bed. Living room wine tasting is both easy and fun! Just go to your local wine or grocery store and buy several different types of wine. You may even be able to find some small bottles that are perfect just for tasting. It is really fun when both of you choose a couple that you have never tried before. I usually go for the more beautiful labels and Ty goes for the most unique sounding thing he can find.

We love Risling, Pinot Grigio, Cabernet, or Merlot! For this date we would challenge you to try something that you have never tried before, maybe even something with bubbles like a sparkling rose! Have your partner close their eyes while you pour their taste and have them guess what it is. We are so bad at this but that’s part of what makes it fun! Another option is to hide the labels from your partner to keep the type of wine a mystery. Many stores even make fun wine tasting kits that have hidden labels so you are both completely in the dark the first time you taste it! This works well if only one of you is making the wine selections. Or if you are Amazon Prime lovers like we are, you can look at lots of wine tasting kits here. The wine tasting kit we most recently got, we just happened to find when we were shopping at Sam’s Club. This is a night full of laughing so hard your stomach hurts while you try some really delicious and maybe some really bad wines. We also love to pair these with a delicious dessert. We have a weakness for sweets… especially when it comes to cheesecake or cookie cake! Here is a fun dessert date night that we call the blind baker if you want to try it before you do your wine tasting! You can also choose a variety of cheeses if you are not dessert people.

If you want to try to make it a little more fancy and bring the Southern California Vineyards to your living room, here are the things we learned while we were traveling. The five components of wine tasting we learned are: See, Swirl, Sniff, Sip, and Savor. First you hold the glass up to the light. Is it clear or hazy? What is the color like? Is it a pale yellow with a greenish tint – you may have a moscato, or is it a deep purplish red? Then you swirl the wine around in the glass. Look at the sides of the glass and see if the wine creates pronounced spider legs or if it doesn’t. Now it is time to sniff. If you’re like me, I feel so silly when I do this one. You are supposed to take short quick sniffs. Try to guess with your partner what kinds of things you are smelling. Pear or apple? MInt or clover? Oak or smokey smells? This part almost feels like being a detective because once you take a sip it is much easier to tell! Finally, the part you have been building up to… you get to taste it!! Take some small sips and discover if you like the taste then make your guess on the type of wine. You can decide to reveal the wine type after each tasting, or you can write down your guess and reveal them all at the end to see how you did.

It really doesn’t matter which wines you choose. It’s all about spending quality time together. It’s so easy to just sit in front of the TV after the kids go to bed. This is just one of our ideas to do something a little different and have the opportunity to connect with each other. It’s something we enjoy and think you will too!