Wine and song

Yesterday was an uncharacteristically busy day, but a fun day.
The past week was pretty busy, and Nala was cooped up inside for most of the week, so yesterday we spent most of the morning out at the dog park letting her run around and play with some of her dog park buddies. Then it was off to a local vineyard (Irvin House Vineyard) with some friends for their ‘Blessing of the Vines’ event. It was the first time out to a vineyard for most of us, so it was a pretty good time. We rolled up just in time to see the priest’s blessing, so we unfolded the lawn chairs, grabbed some BBQ and some popcorn, and sat down under some shady oak trees to watch. There was some reasonably decent music to listen to, and afterwards we strolled through the vineyard and looked at the muscadine vines. There were even a few grapes left too, but they were still ripening or on the way to becoming raisins. Our friends hadn’t encountered muscadines before though, so the wife educated them a bit and showed them the innards and described how to eat muscadines. Admission to the event came with a glass of wine, so we sampled a few of them. I think our group found them passable, but not terribly impressive. Perhaps this vintage wasn’t one of their best. The wife and I tried their Mullet Hall Red and the Magnolia (one of their white wines). I’m not really a big fan of red wines, but the Mullet Hall Red was enjoyable, light and not to tannin-y like most other reds. The Magnolia was supposed to be their sweeter white wine, but wasn’t nearly as sweet as some other muscadine wines I’ve had (although those were almost too sweet for my liking). I think I’d have to try a few more varieties and vintages to see if I really like the Irvin House wines.
After we got home, one of the wife’s friends stopped by to hang out and help finish off some of the extra food left over from Friday’s post-exam party. Then it was off to the John Legend concert at The Plex. It was a pretty good sized crown at the event, and we even ran into a few people that we knew there. It was a pretty decent concert overall, although the John Legend part of it didn’t actually start until around 10, and went for about an hour and a half. Most all the people there seemed to be pretty into the concert though, including the opening acts.
First concert I’ve ever been to where I was patted down and frisked. Just the guys too, not the women. “Welcome to our world”, the wife says.