Travel Archives - Detroit Duchess

Wine of the Week: Mumm Napa

January 3, 2024 by DetroitDuchess Leave a Comment

For my 40th birthday in 2022, John and I went on an amazing trip to Napa. I didn’t schedule any wine tastings until we arrived in California and I knew I wanted to get bubbles on the list. We were able to book at Mumm and it was the most perfect day driving out there. We rented a Mustang convertible for the trip, so we were driving through Napa with the top down and just loving life. As we arrived at the winery, it was so beautiful. The attention to detail and the gorgeous view made it one of my favorite tastings.

Our tasting was about an hour and we lucked out and it wasn’t very busy so we were able to sit outside on their patio with a view of the vineyards and the Mayacamas Mountains.

Mumm can be traced back to GH Mumm, the leading international champagne brand in France. Established in California in the late 1970s, Mumm Napa follows traditional wine-making techniques of its French heritage to create the finest, hand-crafted sparkling wines. John and I loved the experience and just being on vacation and baby-free. It was probably a combination of it all that made the trip so magical. To commemorate the day, we ended up joining the wine club and since then have enjoyed some amazing wines from Mumm.

For this post, I didn’t want to highlight one specific wine, but the winery as a whole. Mumm has some amazing Rose Sparkling wines which are my favorites. They also send out two Magnum bottles to wine club members during the holidays, which is so fun!

We started a little tradition of bubbles and pizza on Friday nights and have enjoyed having bubbles on hand to celebrate the big wins and the small ones. Another highlight is their DVX Cuvées which are made using the best grapes from each year’s harvest and aged for at least six years.

One of the other things I discovered in Napa was a Bouchon, which is a special tool you can use to recork and extend the life of your bubbles. Mumm has sent us one in our shipments, but I bought a few on Amazon for $10 and they work better than anything I’ve tried before. So if we have bubbles on Friday, I can save what’s left and have mimosas on Saturday morning. These would make great stocking stuffers, gifts, or a housewarming present to accompany a bottle of bubbles.

If you’ve tried Mumm before, let me know your favorites in the comments!

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Filed Under: Travel, Wine of the Week Tagged With: Mumm, Napa, sparkling wine, Travel, wine, wine of the week

Wolverines in Texas – Vacation Recap

September 21, 2017 by DetroitDuchess 7 Comments

Over Labor Day weekend, John and I traveled to the great state of Texas to see our Michigan Wolverines take on the Florida Gators in the Advocare Classic. A number of friends came along to cheer on Michigan and we had such a blast so I thought I would share some of the fun highlights.

Our first stop on Friday was a trip to Delaney Vineyards in Grapevine, Texas.

I was surprised to find a winery in Texas because it is so hot, but apparently they have a few regions that mimic the California coast and actually produce some fantastic grapes. They had a nice facility and have been around for more than 20 years. They have a few of the vines onsite and you can walk through them and taste some grapes right off the vine. My friend Chandra (who recently joined us for a guest post) was also on the trip:

After our tasting we were able to purchase bottles and sit outside which was a fun afternoon activity. Safe to say we thoroughly tried a nice selection…

Saturday was game day and we decided to purchase tickets to the official alumni tailgate which turned out to be a great idea mostly because of the air conditioning. It also included food and drink and they had a fun lineup of former players and music to keep it exciting.

The game was so exciting and we won making the whole experience even better. AT&T Stadium is huge!

On Sunday we visited the historic Fort Worth Stockyards.

We did some shopping and were right on time to see the cattle drive.

Of course I found a winery for us to stop in at. Cowtown Winery was the perfect refresher on a HOT day.

We stopped by Cooper’s Old-Time BBQ for all the meats before we hit the rodeo. Make sure to bring your appetite. The Stockyards Rodeo was the main attraction. There were barrel races and all kinds of tricks. At the end they had bull riders and one of them almost got trampled! We thought he broke his ankle, but his boot had just come off. It was intense!

I really needed to invest in a cowboy hat to protect me from that Texas sun. I am not built for that kind of heat! We had a fantastic time in Texas and I wish we could have spent more time exploring. Who knows maybe Michigan will play there again soon.

What are your favorite spots in the Dallas/Fort Worth area?

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Filed Under: Travel Tagged With: Advocare Classic, Arlington, Cowtown Winery, Delaney Vineyards, Football, Fort Worth, Stockyards, Texas, Travel, University of Michigan, wine

Summer Vacation – Kentucky Part 3

September 28, 2015 by DetroitDuchess 11 Comments

The fourth installment in my summer vacation recap is about our stops at Maker’s Mark, Four Roses and Buffalo Trace distilleries. You can read about the first stop in Cleveland, our first day in Kentucky, and our second day at Jim Beam via the links.

Our first stop at Maker’s Mark was a hike. It was about an hour drive to get there from our hotel, but we started with that one so we could work our way back through the other distilleries. Maker’s Mark was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1980, so as you tour the grounds you get a peek back in time.

Most of the distilleries were shutdown for summer so we got a unique look at the cypress fermentation tanks. Some of them have planks that are more than 200 years old.

Some of you may know that Maker’s Mark has a distinctive red wax seals on all of its bottles. This was trademarked in 2012 and no other liquor company can use the red wax seal on their bottles. We had the chance to tour the bottling area and see where the bottles are dipped.

As we were checking out the barrels we learned that they put special wood slats into the Maker’s 46 barrels to give it that extra oakey flavor.

We got to sample all of the different Maker’s Mark varieties in their special tasting room. I especially liked the Maker’s 46:

John and I had a lot of fun in the gift shop where we got to dip our own Maker’s bottles and take them home. They are so cool that I never want to open them!

After Maker’s Mark, we headed over to Four Roses Distillery. We didn’t make it in time for the tour, but they had a patio tasting going on so we signed up for that. I loved the name of Four Roses, which was named after a romance, you can read the full story here.

We had a little break after this stop and headed over to Wallace Station for a delicious lunch. It was featured on Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives on the Food Network. It was the perfect place to stop and right in between our distillery visits.

We had a little bit of time to kill as we had signed up for a ghost tour at Buffalo Trace Distillery. When we arrived the distillery was seemingly deserted, setting the stage for the tour.

Buffalo Trace is a National Historic Landmark dating back to 1792 when “The Old Taylor House” was built on the property and still stands today.

Buffalo Trace was featured on the TV show Ghost Hunters and is said to be haunted by the ghost of Col. Blanton. On our tour we heard lots of stories and got to visit the haunted sites as well as the Stony Point Mansion where Col. Blanton died in 1959.

We didn’t see any ghosts, but we did have a complimentary tasting of some of the Buffalo Trace products and I have to take a second and rave about the Bourbon Cream! This stuff is amazing…it puts Bailey’s to shame…but you can only get it at the distillery…so I bought two!

Have you been to the Bourbon Trail? What were your favorites?

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Filed Under: Travel Tagged With: Bourbon Trail, Buffalo Trace, Kentucky, Makers Mark, Travel, Vacation

Summer Vacation 2015 – Kentucky Part 2

September 14, 2015 by DetroitDuchess 2 Comments

The third installment in my summer vacation recap is all about Jim Beam. You can read about the first stop in Cleveland and our first day in Kentucky via the links. On our second day in Kentucky we visited the Jim Beam Distillery and boy was John excited.

We arrived just in time for the tour and the first thing I learned is all bourbon is whiskey, but not all whiskey is bourbon. The U.S. government has a set of regulations that determines exactly what can be called bourbon.

John preparing for our tour!

One fun fact is that bourbon can only be made in the United States. In 1964 Congress declared that bourbon had to be distilled and aged in the United States and it can’t be called Kentucky Straight Bourbon unless it has been distilled and aged in Kentucky for at least two years.

Another bourbon regulation is that all bourbon must be aged in brand new charred oak barrels. Distilleries can’t recycle the barrels so they are purchased by all sorts of companies to use for scotch, sometimes wine and furniture among other things.

Each bourbon maker has it’s own mash recipe, but to be a bourbon the recipe must consist of 51% corn.

The color in bourbon comes from the barrels. The only thing that can be added to bourbon is water, if anything else like coloring or flavor is added you can’t call it bourbon.

Now for the fun part, John and I got to clean and imprint our own bottles of Jim Beam Knob Creek! Below is the machine they used to clean, dispense bourbon and label the bottles. When they clean the bottles they have to use the same bourbon that they ultimately fill the bottles with so they don’t alter the flavor in any way.

After they dipped the bottles in wax we each got to put our thumbprints on the top and then they would be down in the gift shop for purchase. I had some fun pictures of this process that got deleted (boo), but here is the bottle right before we put the wax on it:

They had quite the collection of special and commemorative bottles on display. One of which was the I Dream of Jeannie decanter. We learned that the bottle on the show was actually designed after this bottle.

The tour ended in the tasting room and we each got to pick three things to try.

We had a blast on our tour and I even got a fabulous Jim Beam candle to take home. It was definitely my first stop into becoming a bourbon aficionado.

What Jim Beam variations are your favorites?

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Filed Under: Travel Tagged With: Bourbon Trail, Kentucky, Kentucky Bourbon Trail, Travel, Vacation

Summer Vacation 2015 – Kentucky Part 1

September 7, 2015 by DetroitDuchess 7 Comments

As you saw in my first vacation recap post, on our way out of Cleveland, John and I got a late start and stopped for a fun lunch. But we were so excited to get on the road and get the heck out of dodge.

We had to make a pit stop for gas and I couldn’t believe where we randomly stopped…it’s like they knew I was coming!

We finally made it to Kentucky and had to take the obligatory welcome shot:

We didn’t get to our final destination until a little later on so I didn’t have to much to report for the first day. On day three we decided to go to lunch at Mark’s Feed Store.

We were a little to late to do any bourbon tastings (most of the places closed at 3 p.m.) so we found a winery instead! We stumbled upon Broad Run Vineyards which was sort of in the middle of nowhere. We were the only people there and spent a few hours getting a one-on-one tutorial with the owner. I think we both learned a lot and I really appreciated the passion the owner had about wine.

Our hotel, the Embassy Suites in Louisville had a complimentary happy hour every day that we made it back in time for. I tried a Bluegrass Sunrise!

We made dinner reservations at Proof on Main which had a cool, artsy ambiance. The food was great and John was able to get a bourbon flight to kick things off. For dessert they even brought cotton candy to the table for us!