WIDTW: Exeriencing Wine

*Since you all know that I am about one week behind on WIDTW posts, this was actually what I did two weekends ago.*

My brother came across a great package deal for a wine tasting over at OENO Wine Making in Kailua and asked if my hubby and I would be interested in going.  What?!?  A guilt-free excuse to drink various types of wine and gorge myself on cheese and crackers.  How could I say no?  So of course we went.

 This is what the shop looks like, minus my husband's shadow...lol.

OENO is a specialty shop that specializes in the making of wine.  So all the wines that they sample are ones that you can make yourself right in their very shop.  Pretty cool, huh?

Greg and his wife, the owners of OENO, bring in grape juices from vineyards all over the world to make whatever kind of wine that you desire!  You choose the type of wine.  Either they or you, with their help of course, mix your chosen grape juice with yeast to kick off the fermentation process.  Then you wait about 4-6 weeks for your juice to turn into delicious wine.  Once your wine is ready to be bottled, they call you up and you throw a rockin' bottling party in their store.  Talk about a blast in a glass!

Greg talked us through our tasting, introducing each wine and teaching us the proper way to swirl and sniff the wine to pick out its bouquet.  He also included a wine evaluation chart and aroma wheel to help us take notes on the wines that we enjoyed and to decipher bouquets and flavor palates.  Very interesting and informative!

If you like wine, I would suggest that you do a tasting at OENO.  I'm not usually a huge fan of make your own wine places.  Personally, I think that their wines are too fruity and sweet.  But the wines at OENO were fantastic!  They taste just like wine straight from the vineyard!  I was blown away!  So other make your own wine places, you better step up your game!

Here's some pictures of our tasting experience...

La'akea smelling the wine.

My brother Zac seriously contemplating the flavor palate...lol.

Really all he wanted to do was eat cheese.  Can you tell that we're related?

Speaking of cheese...  I heart brie!  It is delicious and will forever be one of my favorites.

At wine tastings they pour a 2oz glass.  We ended up tasting 9 wines total, which comes out to about 3 normal sized glasses.  Let's just say we were feeling pretty nice by the end of the tasting.

Ah, that suave brother of mine.

Melanie, his girlfriend, enjoying the wine.

Here's one of them together.  So cute!

Love...

Here's the group shot.  We had to get at least one.  Thanks Greg for taking this one for us!

In the spirit of fun weekend activities, my husband and I decided to make a barrel of California Cabernet.  Greg is currently waiting for the shipment of grape juice for this particular wine, so once it comes in we'll get to mix it and learn the whole wine making process.  I am so excited!  We get to make our own wine bottle labels and everything!

I'll be sure to keep you all posted on my wine making experience.  Also, if you'd like to purchase a bottle of our handmade Cabernet, just let me know!  Since we're friends, I'll give you the 'super friend discount' of $12 a bottle, which is what it cost me.  The barrel should make 28-31 bottles of wine.  We already have a few bottles spoken for, so if you're interested let me know as soon as possible. 

Excited, excited, excited!