by Annonymous
(New York)
We were in the heart of the Finger Lakes: wine, lakes, and beautiful rural landscape. My companion and I told each other that we wanted to tour at least one winery in addition to attending tastings at as many wineries as we could. At every winery we asked about tours. "Sorry, you just missed it." "We don't do tours today." "Only by appointment."
On our last day in the Finger Lakes we resigned ourselves to the fact that maybe we wouldn't get to see the inner workings of a winery after all. No one offered tours. Then again, we didn't research every single winery in the Finger Lakes before heading out, so we were slightly at fault. Then we got lost. One missed turn sent us in the wrong direction, and we had driven that way for half an hour before noticing.
We drove around for a place to turn around and passed houses and other private properties. Then we saw a long driveway that didn't look private. "We should be able to turn around here," I told him. He drove up, and then we saw the sign. We had just driven into a winery. We looked at each other. Why not? We walked into the winery for a tasting and asked about a tour. The pourer of the wine looked at her watch and informed us that a tour was leaving in fifteen minutes, and a tasting would happen afterward.
We paid for the tour and waited for our group to leave while marveling at our luck. The tour was great. We learned about how the grapes were grown and how they were crushed and turned to wine and even got to see the huge barrels of wine as they fermented. The tastings at the end were also great, as evidenced by our purchases. We took an entire crate of wine to the car with the realization that sometimes the best things in life are complete accidents.