Tomasello Winery

This Sunday, my sister and I had a reservation at Tomasello Winery for an event that I got through Living Social.  It included a wine and cheese pairing, a wine tasting lesson, a tour of the winery, $20 toward a bottle of wine, and a 1 year membership to the winery (which comes with by-the-case discounts!).  I decided to take my sister, Michele, for her birthday which was back in May.

I had never been to the winery and while I wasn’t too excited about the outside, I was very surprised by the inside.  Though it was a basic banquet room, it felt really elegant and pretty.  I didn’t know this event was going to be such a big thing.  We were given gift bags and asked to just take a place at any table that had wine glasses set.

Inside the bag was a list of their wines, some list of events, and a 2 Tomasello glasses.  You bring the glass to any Tomasello tasting room and you get 5 free wine samples for free!  Rob and I frequently go to Historic Smithville where there is a wine room so I will have to remember to take it!  To start the tour, our guide, also the owner, Charlie Tomasello gave us a little introduction and then began the tour of the winery.

The Winery opened in 1933, just after prohibition.  His grandfather drove to DC to become certified (?) just after it ended and is the 68th winery in the country!  He is the 3rd generation and his son is already training and learning to take over the family business.

I have to say, the tour was really interesting even if it was short!  He was ready to answer every question from the history of the winery to the wine making questions (of course, he is the owner).  It was a great tour!  Next up was learning to wine taste.  There are 5 S’s.

First was sight.  You have to look through the glass with a white background to see the color of the wine.  White ranges from yellow to clear while reds range from garnet to brick/orange.  He said the more orange along the edge in a red wine, the older it is (aged).  Very cool!

Second was swirl.  He said if anyone asks, you are volatilizing the esters.  Something about how they boil at room temperature and that the friction with the glass makes them boil off.  I guess you are helping it breathe?  He didn’t explain exactly why but next was…

You sniff the wine (Michele was so kind to demonstrate!).  He asked us to try to pinpoint different notes in the wine.  We were mostly wrong.  LoL.  You look for oak, chocolate, mint, etc.  I am terrible at this step!  But I guess with practice, you can learn how to distinguish them.

The fourth step was sip.  He said wine tasters have the worst table manners because you should bring in some air also to release the best flavor and after he took a sip he made a little slurping sound to suck in air.  Haha!

The last step he said was savor not spit because we don’t want to spit our wine out here.  LoL.  But I guess it usually is spit?

After learning all the steps and going through 5 of their wines, he gave us a chance to taste all the wines they provide.  He went around 4 different tables and described each wine for us so we knew what we could try.  This is where the wine list came in handy too!

Most of the wines were too sweet for me.  They don’t really have a very dark, dry red which is what I prefer.  They don’t even make their own merlot but just bottle a merlot they get from California.  I did enjoy the Pinot Grigio though and bought a bottle.  I also got a bottle of their Almond Wine which is more of a dessert wine.  I will have to think of a nice way to serve that at a party sometime!  Michele had a great time tasting because she loves sweet wines!  We really had a great time though and I can’t wait to do something like this again!  Oh, and Mr. Tomasello said he had 550 people buy the voucher from Living Social and that he’ll never advertise in the newspaper again!  LoL!  I will definitely do this again if it is offered!