Although I usually decline, this year I agreed to join my parents on their annual Fall wine tasting trip, especially once I heard they’d be exploring the wineries in the Shawangunks rather than taking their typical trip to the Finger Lakes region. It would be a good opportunity to see the area in its autumnal glory (which is obviously easier with someone else driving), and possibly to search for a few benchmarks along the way.
Surprisingly, my father was interested in benchmarks, and he got out of the car to help me with each one of them! Our first benchmark for today, LY0515, is set vertically in the exterior wall of an old church that’s now used for shops and offices; it’s right in the middle of the town of Warwick, and we were slowing down for a light when I looked out the window and spotted the mark.
The second mark, LY0512, was located on an old stone house, very conspicuous, that happened to be situated on the road we took to one of the wineries. I was curious about the house and couldn’t help gawking at this quaint, beautifully preserved historic building. I saw the mark set in one of the stones near the door, maybe a foot above the ground.
My father accompanied me inside the fence and up to the door, where we knocked to make sure we were permitted to take photos of the mark and poke around a little. The owner of the house had no problem with it at all, and in fact mentioned that surveyors have been there many times to use the mark, even as recently as last year.
The third mark, LY0214, was on a church that, again, we happened to pass by. I’d read the description when I was looking at marks in this area, and knew that there was one at this “New Prospect Church”. It took a bit of searching, but we finally found it on the foundation behind some bushes.
Of course, the main goal of the day was visiting the wineries. I don’t know how anybody could do the wine tastings at all those places in one day! We only went to five of the nine, and I only tasted wine at three of them. And that was more than enough for me. A few of them were tasty, but I was a little disappointed that they didn’t have more “goodies” for sale, like cheeses, pretzels, jellies and jams that I’ve seen in some of the other wine regions. I did pick up a bag of Gil’s Gourmet Merlot Chocolate Covered Apricots, which I highly recommend. In addition, I couldn’t help but do a little “urban exploration” at one of the wineries. We hooked up with a tour group to get into the cellar, and then wandered off just to poke around a bit.
Saving the best for last, we went to the Gilded Otter for dinner. We split an order of nachos, and I had the Pizza Margherita and oatmeal stout. Everybody else had cheeseburgers (which they said were excellent) and some kind of lager. It was all delicious. We even sat at a table where a little wooden otter overlooked our meal.
