Traveling the Lehigh Valley Wine Trail(1)
Author's Note: Any and all opinions are just that -- my opinions and personal preferences. I recommend striking out on your own to find out what’s most palatable to your taste buds.
At 10 a.m. on Oct. 15, five of us set out from Nazareth with a mission: get to all eight wineries that make up the Lehigh Valley Wine Trail to celebrate the Chambourcin Weekend.
Spoiler Alert: Seven hours later, we succeeded and our mission was complete. We were quite proud of ourselves as we wearily trudged home with 44 bottles of wine in the trunk.
It’s hard to determine what the best thing is about the Lehigh Valley Wine Trail. It might be the breathtaking views as you make your way from one winery to the next via winding mountain roads you probably didn’t even know existed.
It might be the delicious food pairings, things like Chanterelle mushroom soup, authentic Polish pierogies, and tender beef French dip with a Chambourcin reduction.
But it was probably the opportunity to taste more than 50 different wines at eight family-owned wineries, none more than 40 minutes from home.
This past weekend, Oct. 15 and 16, was the Chambourcin Weekend for the wineries of the Lehigh Valley Wine Trail. The weekend celebrated the Chambourcin grape, also called “the jewel of the Lehigh Valley.”
The French-American hybrid grape was designed to grow well in East Coast soil -- and thrive it does. Each winery offers at least one Chambourcin wine, no two of which are the same.
What follows is a brief exploration into the wine trail -- delving too deep into any one winery would take way too long. Suffice it to say they are all great, and they all offer incredible wines.
Even the wineries themselves range from rustic farmhouses to upscale European-style tasting rooms. The diversity is astounding.
Our first stop on the wine trail was Clover Hill Vineyards & Winery in Breinigsville. Its tasting room is impressively large, and attached to a banquet hall that can be rented for special occasions.
I sampled six wines here. The standouts for me were the Turtle Rock Red, a semi-sweet, berry-flavored red wine; the 2009 Chambourcin, which had a definitive oak flavor, and the DeChaunac, a semi-sweet earthy red.
My Pick: DeChaunac
Stop number two was Vynecrest Winery, also in Breinigsville and less than 10 minutes from Clover Hill. This winery was in a high-raftered farmhouse, which really gave it a welcoming feel.
I sampled six wines here as well. The DiVyne Red was a semi-sweet red made from the Concord grape. The Autumn Gold was also great, a sweet white and a Silver Medal winner. I left with a bottle of each!
