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Nashville Day 2 Recap – Arrington Vineyards

My husband and I traveled to Nashville for Memorial Day weekend to visit our close friends Eric and Stephanie. The highlight of Day 2 was our trip to Arrington Vineyards.

The vineyards

Saturday was actually National Wine Day, which worked out perfectly for our trip to the vineyard and my Wine of the Week post.

Entering the winery

Arrington Vineyards is owned by Kix Brooks (part of Brooks & Dunn), winemaker Kip Summers, and entrepreneur John Russell. Brooks was inspired to open the vineyard by Faith Hill and her husband Tim McGraw. They used to give Brooks and his wife two bottles of wine from different countries each month which led to his love of wine.

Arrington Vineyards

One interesting thing that we learned on this trip was that Tennessee used to be a leading wine-producing region in the US, but this was cut short because of prohibition. Tennessee is usually known for its whiskey and moonshine, but wine has been making a comeback since the 1980’s. Tennessee now has more than 40 wineries and 150 vineyards (for more info visit the Tennessee Farm Winegrowers Association). Visiting one of the wine trails would make a great activity for our next trip!

Lots of areas to picnic

We arrived at the Vineyard planning to do a wine tasting, but it was packed! We put our name on the list and then proceeded to get a table on the deck. While we were waiting we bought some wine, cheese and crackers to hang out and pass the time. The winery had a great ambiance and it reminded me of our time in Napa. While we were waiting we tried a few of the different wines, including:

Stags White 2011 – $17.99

This was a great blend, perfect for a hot day.

Stag’s White 2011

Chardonnay 2012 – $21.99

We had to try this, because I was out of Chardonnay at home. It worked really well with the pepper crackers and cheese that we had.

Chardonnay 2012

I also tried some of Stephanie’s Raspberry Dessert Wine ($14.99) with truffles and it was delicious! We decided that it would taste awesome over ice cream.

Stephanie and Eric

We finally got called for our tasting and were escorted to a private room under the winery. I decided to join Kix’s Wine Club and this allowed us to taste five wines instead of four.

I tried the Viognier 2011 ($18.99), Firefly Rose 2010 ($17.99), Red Fox Red 2010 ($21.99), Petite Noir 2011 ($23.99) and the KB 409 ($49.99). I liked everything I tried. Which prompted us to take some wine home with us:

The wine we bought

Now I can’t wait for our first shipment of wine! It will remind us of our trip every time we drink it. Have you visited any Nashville wineries? Let us know where we should go next.

For more on our trip to Nashville, click here.

For more Wine of the Week posts, click here.

Wine of the Week: Bennett Lane 2010 Maximus

My love affair with wine first started with Riesling in my mid-twenties. Since then it has expanded to all different kinds of wine. My husband and I toured vineyards and wineries in Italy, Sicily and Crete during our honeymoon and really fell in love with great wine. For my 30th birthday last year we went to Napa Valley which made me love wine even more.

Since I love trying new wines, I thought I would share my favorites with you each week and hopefully you will share your favorites with me.

During our Napa trip last year, we toured the winery at Bennett Lane and had lunch there. I liked everything so much that we decided to join their wine club. Our most recent shipment just arrived and we are loving the 2010 Maximus Red Feasting Wine.

Maximus Red Feasting Wine

The description on the back of the bottle reads:

“Every year at Bennett Lane our winemaker creates a proprietary blend from select 100% Napa Valley fruit. Dubbed “Maxiumus” in homage to the Roman Emperor Magnus Maximus, a notorious winelover and gourmand, we adorned the face label with an ancient diobol coin issued in 385 AD during his reign. In true Roman tradition, this feasting wine was made to be enjoyed with good food and great friends.”

It is the perfect wine to go with anything. It’s not too sweet and not too dry. This wine runs around $35 a bottle depending on what year you get. In Michigan you can find Bennett Lane wines at Arbor Beverage in Ann Arbor.