Great Escape: Wine Trail Sets Romantic Weekend

Your teens are holding a car wash at the high school Saturday. The grandparents volunteered to take the younger children to a movie Sunday afternoon. Your tweens take tap on Wednesday evening. It’s your time. Take it.

Each week, we’ll tell you about one great idea to give you a much deserved break, and make your life a little easier, maybe a whole lot easier.

It’s that time of year again: The New Jersey Wine and Chocolate Wine Trail Weekend is back for two more days of wine, chocolate, tours, music and more.

This Saturday and Sunday, participating wineries throughout the state will be providing delicious chocolate based treats to pair with their wines from noon to 5 p.m. How many wineries you choose to visit, what order to go them and which ones you visit is completely up to you. Each winery varies a bit in what they have to offer and how much they charge.

Or, as part owner of Auburn Road Winery Scott, Donnini put it, “Everybody’s got something special going on.”

Donnini and his wife Julianne, the head winemaker, have been doing this Wine Trail Weekend for four years now, and he expects a good turnout.

Auburn Road is located in Pilesgrove and is the southernmost part of the Gloucester/Salem Wine Trail, located about 30 minutes from West Deptford, but don’t let that stop you.  

For $10 per person, you get a souvenir wine glass with the Auburn Road Winery Logo, two homemade truffles, tours of the winery by the head winemaker, samples of homemade soups by R Fabulous Foods, and the attraction Scott Donnini is looking forward to the most: the chocolate fountain.

The wine tasting will be mostly in a self-serve fashion where you can pair the wines with your truffles, or dip strawberries, marshmallows, pretzels or pineapples in the chocolate fountain, to see which you like best.

And if you are really enjoying yourself you can stay for the local Beatles tribute band the Rubber Souls. The band will be playing an all acoustic set of Beatles love songs at the tasting room/restaurant Enoteca inside Auburn Road Winery from 7 to 9 p.m. Enoteca offers all of the same foods and wines you can enjoy at the sampling plus more.

But remember, when trying all of these things, “the rule of thumb is the food has to be drier than the wine,” said Richard Heritage of the Mullica Hill based Heritage Winery.

He and his parents Bill and Penni did a Wine and Chocolate pairing on Feb. 5 and 6, where the turnout was “really surprising. (We) didn’t expect to see so many.” According to Heritage, they saw around 200 people on Saturday and around 170 on Sunday.

“People get so excited about wine and chocolate,” said the young wine enthusiast.

This year Heritage Winery will be offering four or five featured wines along with different foods for pairing for $5. Richard Heritage’s favorite pairing was the chocolate covered bacon paired with their “Best of the East Coast” Gold Medal winning Merlot.

Heritage and some guests were skeptical of the bacon at first, but it turned out to be the highlight of the event, and will be featured again this weekend.

“One of the people that works in our tasting room is a chef, and he suggested it,” Heritage said.

For an additional $5 you can take a winery tour in a heated tour van. The tour, led by the assistant winemaker, takes you through the vineyards and ends at the winery where the wine is aged, fermented and bottled.

If you’re lucky, you may even get to sample wines straight out of the barrel or tanks. Heritage likes to show visitors the entire process because, as Heritage said, “it’s hard to convince people we grow grapes here.” People sometimes think they have them shipped in from other states.

The final two wineries also grow their grapes on the premises and come from a farming background.

Wagonhouse Winery owners Dan and Heather Brown will be sampling at Grasso Girl’s Farm Market in Mullica Hill. Dan Brown said that they wouldn’t be able to put on a show like the other local wineries.

“Hopefully we will have our own tasting room in April and will be able to offer customers a lot more,” he said.

This is the third year that the couple has participated in the Wine and Chocolate Weekend, and despite the lack of accommodations, they are one of the few wineries whose sampling this weekend will be free. “We will be offering a complimentary tasting with chocolate,” says Brown.   

Brown recommends trying the Fallen Quaker, a sweet red wine with a chocolate coffee and lavender blend, to keep with the Valentine’s Day theme.

Both he and Heritage recommend checking out multiple wineries this weekend.

“A lot of people outside of the business seem to think it is a competition. We don’t see it that way,” Brown said.

Owners of Cedarvale Winery, Marsha and Ed Gaventa, also see no need for animosity amongst the wineries.

“A lot of us are farmers and we help each other out,” said Marsha Gaventa.

The Logan Township-based Cedarvale will be pairing wines with sweets, providing live music and putting on a special display from Ria Smith Jewlery Designs on Saturday and another jewelry display by Cait on Sunday.

A special attraction to this event will be the brownies—baked with Cabernet Franc! Gaventa alluded that other treats would also be made with wine, but didn’t want to give away too much. 

Author's note: Though the samplings are in many cases inexpensive or free, it's generally considered good taste to purchase a bottle of wine if you enjoyed any of the wines that the winery carries, which generally range from $10 to $20 per bottle.