The wineries in Ashtabula County host different events all year long. For the month of October one of the events they host is the Adult Trick or Treating Wine and Cocktail Trail. There were 6 locations that participated, each place either had wine or cocktail samples, food and candy.
Then most of them has specialty drinks that you could add on if you wanted. You then had your card stamped at each location and turned them in at your last winery to be entered for a prize. The cost of this was 8 dollars at each winery so 48 dollars total.
We started out at Grand River Cellars. They served pasta with ghost shaped cheese, two wine samples and a piece of candy. The pasta was probably one of my favorite foods of the day. You had options with the wine, either dry or sweet. We all went sweet so the two wine samples were Riesling and Austin’s Blush. Both were not overly sweet and went well with the pasta.
We also decide to get the fall sangria which had frozen apple slices, maple iced wine, 1/2 a bottle of champagne and apple cider. It was so good and I loved the frozen apple slices to keep the drink cold.
Our next stop was Debonne Vineyards, which is one of the most popular wineries and because of this not a winery we visit often. It was good to stop in on a day like this where it was slightly quieter. They had a spaghetti pasta with a meatball as the food option. The meatball had good flavor and was a pretty good size. They had 3 wine samples, a Riesling, a classic red or River Rouge depending on if you choose sweet or dry and a bonus sample the River Spice. The Riesling is one of my top wines at Debonne and the River Rouge had good flavor. None of us were fans of the River Spice. It was like fire ball in a wine form which I’m sure some people would love but it wasn’t for us.
We also tried their specialty drink, the Black Magic Sangeria. This drink was much bigger than we anticipated. It consisted of DV Chambourcin Red Wine, Pomegranate Grape Cocktail, Blue Curacao, Sweetened Lime Juice, Black Cherry Sparkling Water, Free Blackberries, Black Pluots, Blueberries and Purple Pearl Lustre Dust. This was not very sweet which I enjoyed and has an interested (in a good way) flavor. I like try these unique drinks since they are not something you would typically get at the wineries.
Next stop was South River Vineyards, which is the winery in the church building. Their grounds are gorgeous! In the past I have had a hard time finding wine from here that I really like. I went with the Creation, which is a sweeter white wine and the Malbec which was much drier but had great blackberry flavor. I enjoyed both of these.
For the Trick or Treat event you could pick two samples of wine, they had a pumpkin cheesecake and a piece of candy. The pumpkin cheesecake was my other favorite food item of this event. It had great pumpkin flavor, a graham cracker crust and the perfect texture. Cheesecake is one of my favorite desserts so I was so excited for this.
From South River Winery we headed to Red Eagle Distillery and Black Door Tavern which are both on the same property. The distillery did not have any food but we did get hot cider, which was hot apple cider, bourbon, and brown sugar.
I really enjoyed this and thought it had a great bourbon to cider ratio. We also tried the Pumpkin Spice, which was Brandy, Chai, Pumpkin and Cream. This was really good but due to all the cream I could only drink one.
The Black Door Tavern is a house that was renovated into a tavern. During this event just the bar upstairs was open. They provided a pretty big drink that had bourbon in it and pumpkin soup. Both were pretty good, the drink was just a lot in size with 5 other places. The pumpkin soup had great flavor and I would have never guessed I would have liked pumpkin soup. I enjoyed the vibe of this place and would really like to go back and try their dinner menu.
Our last stop was Cask 307, my favorite winery. I love there outdoor areas and their wine. The vibe of this winery is just right. We got two red wine options here which were both good and then the dirt dessert. I’m not a fan of chocolate so I wish we would have had another option in addition. These were cute and fit right in with the Halloween vibes though.
Because we went the weekend before Halloween a bunch of people were dressed up and I actually got my costume idea from one of the girls at Red Eagle Distillery, shout out or her for the Freddy costume. These events are always so much fun. They did a Thanksgiving event but it only went one weekend and then the Tannenbaum Trail. The Tannenbaum Trail started Thanksgiving weekend and goes through most of December. We did get tickets and I can’t wait to share our experience.
If you haven’t been out to the wineries or haven’t participated in the wineries events I highly suggest checking them out. The wineries are so beautiful and the events are so much fun!