Several years ago, my best friend, Ashley, and I discovered a fun little adventure called Uncork York. The premise of this event is to increase tourism and promote local wineries in York County and nearby areas. When we first learned of it, none of our other friends knew of it as the Uncork York tour was only in the first couple years of having been established. Here is a picture from our first year taken at the first winery of the day, Seven Valleys Winery, in Glen Rock, PA.
At each winery, you get your punch card stamped, hole punched, or marked off by the winery. The idea is to have at least 5 punches so you can submit your punch card to a contest to try to win cool prizes. After 6 years of doing this, I'm proud to say that we have won....................0 times. However, we sure do have fun trying to win. Did I mention that rather than space out our visits over the month of March, as was the intent of the founders of Uncork York, my friends and I try to hit up all 5 wineries within one day!?
I couldn't find a picture from when we Uncorked York in 2008 so here is a photo from my first time at Nacho Mama's in Canton. At the time, I had been seeing a guy from Maryland (Go RAVENS!!), who invited me to come hang out with a buddy and him over Valentine's Day Weekend. I made Ash come with me so we had a sort of double date at this awesome restaurant before barhopping.
While the relationship didn't work out, my love affair with Nacho Mama's did. I'm so excited to return to this quirky establishment over Spring Break in a few weeks. From the yummy ginormous quesadillas to the funky (velvet) Elvis room to the hubcap margaritas to the fun old school chalkboard in the restroom, Nacho Mama's never fails in providing us with fun times.
Uncork York 2009 was full of surprises from experiencing beautiful weather to flash storms that included hail to seeing men in kilts! The above picture taken at Adams County Winery (not far from Gettysburg, PA) makes me laugh. As you can see, we had just gotten caught in the sudden storm as we made our way from my car to the winery. Did Gavin Green take this picture?? ;)
Uncork York 2010 was a bittersweet experience for me because I was waiting on word on whether or not I would be going to NC the following school year. Three days prior to this picture being taken, I had found out that I was accepted into UNCG's Doctoral Program after 2 months of waiting for my application to be reviewed but I still had 1.5 months to go of waiting before I would know what fate held. When we did Uncork York at this time, I thought it might be my last one due to not knowing if I would be in NC or PA the next year.
March 2010 was also one of my favorite months when looking back over my life thus far. It was a good time for me in that I was doing well at my job, was 4 months active in the Young Adults ministry and making Catholic friends in Lancaster, Harrisburg, and beyond, had paid off my Master's degree and car, enjoyed living with Ashley, and my puppy's health problems were almost under control. Looking at this picture, I love how colorful we all look and remember clearly how warm that day was and how we all loved being out in the sunshine during the unseasonably warm temps. When I look at myself in this picture, I can remember the feeling of hope and anticipation I had as I pondered my fate during this time in my life. Moondancer Winery will always be one of my favorite wineries (for many reasons) and one of them is because of the view of the magnificent Susquehanna River that we were facing as the picture was being taken (check out their website for pretty views of the river).
After my first year in the PhD program, I was ecstatic when I realized that during my first Spring Break, my friends and I could participate in Uncork York yet again!!
We made sure to hit up old favorites, such as Allegro Winery, in Red Lion, PA. The wine bottles at this winery all have musical wine labels with each wine having names like Fusion, Harmony, and other neat names. In the above picture, we posed in 2011, with one of the vineyard workers (vinter?).
Each year, Uncork York, now called Mason-Dixon Wine Trail (but it will always be Uncork York to me) expands and adds new wineries to their list of participating wineries. In the beginning, wineries from predominantly southern York County were featured but nowadays, wineries from York to Gettysburg to Harrisburg to Hershey to even down in Maryland are part of this awesome event.
In 2012, we started out at the Vineyard at Hershey in what was probably our largest group of friends yet last year. This winery holds potential and it's been fun seeing their progress grow over the last year via their website and Facebook page.
So, you see, Uncork York is so much more than just sipping some wine here and there. It's a great way to get out and about on a beautiful Saturday with friends and to see what the south central area of Pennsylvania and now Maryland have to offer in terms of sights and tastes. I can't wait to do it all again and try to win one of the cool contest prizes yet again as tradition continues when we Uncork York 2013!
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| Nissley Winery samples in Lancaster County, PA |
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| Fiore Winery in Maryland |
While so much has changed in such a short period of time, I'm grateful that some things haven't and I can still step foot into some of these old (to me) but also explore some new wineries in a month. As I wrote this blog posting, I realized that this experience is much like a metaphor for this phase in my life...I'm going back to the old but am also tentatively branching out and trying some of the new..both in wineries and in possibilities for my life. Hmm, I think I need a glass of wine to ponder this one!
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