Loving Ohio's Wine Trails

Ohio’s in the midst of a grape-growing, wine-making revival, and its wines are winning wine competitions on a national level. East of Cleveland, Ashtabula County has more wineries per square mile than any other region of the state and is home to over half of the wine grape acreage in Ohio. Ohio was the first state to cultivate grapes and was the leading producer of wine in the United States during the early part of the 19th century when Nicholas Longworth of Cincinnati planted his grapes in the Ohio River Valley.

Grape growing on the Lake Erie Islands--Kelley’s Island, South Bass, Middle Bass, and North Bass--as well as in Danbury Township on Marblehead Peninsula and in Sandusky, was well established by German immigrants by the mid-1800s. Immigrants from France, Italy, and Hungary followed. Mon Ami Winery in Port Clinton produced some of the countries best Champagnes by 1870.

Prohibition destroyed the wine industry in Ohio, but the farms along Lake Erie’s moderate shore continued to grow grapes. Grapes were sold at the Welch’s depot on Route 83 and other depots along the train route from Erie to Toledo. During the 1920s, many vineyards sold their juice with sly instructions on how to make wine, and families served their own wine on their tables at dinner.

Wine making in Ohio took a dramatic turn in the 1960s when Arnie Esterer of Markko Winery in Conneaut started experimenting with European varietals and French-American hybrids, including Chambourcin, Vidal Blanc and Seyval, as well as ice wines from Vidal Blanc grapes. Property owners with family farms followed course and Chardonnays and Cabernets became as common as Concords with help from the Ohio State University Research Center.

Today, award-winning Pinot Noirs from St. Joseph share the stage with Emerine Estates, which produces fruit wines, like blueberry and country apple wines, among others. Quarry Hill Winery sells its wines in an apple barn and Mon Ami serves its wine in elegant dining rooms. The wine trails along Lake Erie's lakeshore provide an afternoon or weekend adventure with sweeping views of Lake Erie along scenic byways. A great selection of wine can be enjoyed in cozy tasting rooms or fresh-air patios. Serenading accordion music and oven-fresh bread lull into Old World siestas, Lake Erie style. Check out the industry at http://www.ohiowines.org/.

The Tongass

The beauty of Alaska is found in the Tongass National Forest along the coast north of British Columbia, where the forest drips with moisture and moss hangs from the trees. I still dream about Alaska all these months later. From Mount Roberts in Juneau, the morning sun glows on a waterway as smooth as a backyard pond. We biked to a log-cabin chapel in the woods and around Mendenhall Glacier before tasting a variety of beer at the Alaska Brewing Company, whose tale of successful entrepreneurial drive is a tribute to everyman capitalism. Alaska's natural beauty is complemented by the frontier spirit of the people who have lived there for centuries and those who have made it their new home.

Amongst the Eagles

I go back to Alaska when walking in the Cuyahoga Valley because we now have eagles in common. The white head of an eagle can be easily spotted amidst the green of spruce and sycamore in Haines, Alaska, or the blue-blue sky of a surprisingly sun-shiny day on the North Coast. In Haines last summer, we listened to local lore told by our Eagle Preserve tour director-radio personality-writer, then floated up a silty river past a native village in the Eagle Preserve, always on the look out for a flying or resting eagle. Back in town after taking off our rubber boots, Haines’ mayor/artist greeted us in his Victorian house surrounded by a white picket fence and spoke grandly about any subject; he even knows the names of Cleveland's westside suburbs. His neighbor, a talented Stanford-educated architect-artist, has taken a log cabin for his gallery and filled it brimful with art he silently carves while his life mate takes care of the customers. Later we drank a Haines Brewery beer at a table in a restaurant owned by a couple from the Grand Canyon area, and try to imagine what it would be like to move from Lake Erie's southern shore to southeastern Alaska. I think we would become part of the menagerie that makes Haines lively.

New York City in Spring

Paintings lined the sidewalks in the Village, jugglers bounced red balls in Washington Square, and a violinist serenaded me when I was seventeen, in New York for the first time. I've been to New York City many times since, but this month, our family became NYC tourists. It fascinates me how even though Manhattan's tall buildings seem endless, I know how to find Times Square and Central Park and St. Patrick's Cathedral as well as if I was in Manhattan every day. It feels like a small city grown up with its ancient cemeteries, 17th-century churches, and historic seaports. And anyone who says not to drive in Manhattan must be talking about the cost of parking, because driving is no worse than Montreal or San Francisco or Chicago--just watch out for opening car doors, double-parked taxis, and pedestrians by the dozens at every corner. It rained, but Macy's was in bloom from floor to ceiling and fruit trees were in blossom. People strolled in Central Park and street dancers performed across from The Plaza. We enjoyed the M&M store on Times Square about as much as anyone can enjoy a store--a must-see. The skyline from Brooklyn's Promenade and the thousands of lights below us at night from the Empire State Building excited us as our ancestors must have been when they landed on Ellis Island and found America.

The Veendam - Days Two and Three

We boarded The Veendam on June 13. It was our first cruise and the easiest way to get to the ports in the Tongass rainforest in southeast Alaska. Our ports of call were Ketchikan, Juneau, Sitka, and Haines, with a stop at Hubbard Glacier in Wrangell-St. Elias National Park before disembarkation at Seward. But first, we were at sea for a day and a half.

Vancouver Island is much larger than I imagined it. We coasted along between Vancouver Island and mainland British Columbia for an entire day until we passed its northernmost rocks and were on open waters. On our second day we entered the Inside Passage and cruised with snow-capped mountains on either side of the ship. The navigator reported that we passed Lions Gate Bridge leaving Vancouver, then sailed through the Straits of Georgia to Seymour Narrows, which can only be transied during "slack tide." We then sailed through Discovery Passage and Johnstone Strait. We liked to watch the scenery pass by the windows in one of the beautiful lounges while sipping wine. Once in a while, we saw a whale and birds flew past. We felt mesmerized. Outside temperatures were cool with the wet air and ocassional rain, so it was not comfortable to be on deck.

We became acquainted with our ship while we were shipbound. Our room was in the middle of Deck 4, and at night it was wonderfully dark and quiet as we listened to the engine humming against a gentle rocking of the ship. Above us were four more decks of sleeping quarters--1100 passengers were on board. On Decks 7 and 8, glitzy Ruben's Lounge took over space at the bow and the many-windowed Rotterdam Dining Room rested at the stern. In between were shops, a casino, the library, piano bars, and comfortable lounges with live music.

The captain was amusing with his Dutch accent and the crew was Indonesian and extremely pleasant. Our first night we enjoyed complimentary champagne at the casine after Janine Gardner's comedy show. We avoided gambling and shopping on the ship and were astounded when our second-day program about ports of call was about shopping the jewelry stores at the ports in Ketchikan and Juneau.

We started having room service for breakfast after the second day, but ate lunch at the buffet on the Lido Deck (if we were on the ship), and enjoyed dinner in the dining room. Since we chose "as you wish" dining, we could choose when to eat and generally we were seated with other guests. At the Rotterdam Dining Room, the menus were varied, choices were exceptional, and the food was delicious. One evening I had shrimp cocktail followed by an Alaskan Fishermen's Pot, filet mignon paired with a lobster tail, and Baked Alaska.

We liked being pampered, but by the end of our second day at sea we were looking forward to seeing Ketchikan.

Vancouver - The First Part of Our Adventure

Many people believe Vancouver to be one of the most beautiful North American cities. With the way the mountains rise above the water that surrounds the city, the city is not just beautiful, it's soothing to the soul. Even in mid-June, the humid, misty air keeps it cool in temperate Vancouver.

En route to Alaska, we found Vancouver to be a vibrant city with great natural assets. We stayed at the Ramada Express, which was formerly the Niagara Hotel and built in 1918. The hotel resides in the renovated Gastown district with its lovely shops, galleries, and restaurants; it's a great place for strolling. We were especially intrigued by one shop's carved-wood facade and fascinating menagerie of museum-quality Native Tlingit (pronounced "klin kit") art. The historic clock proudly reminds visitors that the Gastown district near the docks was a bustling part of the city in the Victorian era.

From Gastown, we wandered over to Chinatown. Vancouver's Chinatown is supposed to be the second largest Chinese settlement in North America, so I believe we only saw a slice of it. It wasn't as pleasant as San Francisco's welcoming community and we had no sense of elegant white-linen restaurants. But Dr. Sun Yat-Sen's Chinese gardens with its exotic bamboo forests, picturesque waterlily pond, pagoda-roofed hut, and bridges was a tranquil jewel. The Gardens are modeled after a 15th century scholar's garden. The shopkeepers in the adjacent shop graciously introduced us to the Chinese characters for Peace, Love, Happiness, and Wealth, and we sensed the deep commitment in the Chinese culture to living well.

As we do, we walked for a couple of hours before we decided to ride the elevator up into the observation deck above the city. It was worth the money. We could see the whole city and surrounding area from the circle of windows. Captions at our fingertips introduced us to what we saw--the West End, Stanley Park, Georgian Bay, the University of British Columbia, the harbor, and English Bay.

Many recommended restaurants are in Yorktown, a gentrified warehouse neighborhood of bricked and terraced streets. Because raised eight-foot-high docking ports lined one side of each street, one was required to climb steps to reach the patioed elegant restaurants above. A smorgasbord of cuisines and proprietors urged us to join them, but when we spotted the Yorktown Brewing Company on a street-corner directoroy, we chose that less expensive option. The Yorktown Brewing Company satisfied our thirst for some good local brew and hunger for simple pub food before we embarked a cruise ship where we would be served elegant evening meals--my teriyaki-wasabe salmon sandwich served with a caesar salad tasted good after an adventurous day.

The next morning we walked the Sea Wall (a planned urban walkway) through Coal Harbor and Burrey's Inlet along the waterfront until we arrived at Stanley Park. The inlet was lovely with the docked boats and seaplanes landing agaisnt the backdrop of the wooded peninsula, and when we turned around, we saw the magnificent Vancouver skyline to the right and the mountains on the other side of the water to our left. We had a good walk in the park past the lagoon and enjoyed azaleas, rhododendrum, and dogwood, yellow iris and cattails. We ended up on the beach in English Bay before traversing the forest again to walk through the city and back to our hotel.

We're glad we took an extra day before the cruise-tour to see Vancouver.

Needing a Vacation

Long weekends are great, but there's no substitute for extended time away. My parents are in Fort Lauderdale, just off a cruise ship to the Caribbean, and when I listened to my mother talk about sitting by the pool last night, I was jealous. I'm itching to go somewhere, will even consider a weekend on Put-in-Bay until we can embark on our long-anticipated (and paid for) cruise tour of Alaska in June. The last extensive vacation we took was last June, when we explored Northern California.

One would think a tour of California would hold one over for a year. Especially when there were weekend trips in-between: we even drove to the Outer Banks for a five-day break in the fall. I NEEDED to be by the water again. Now, in late March, I need to be by the ocean again. The ebb and flow of the tides and the sound of the waves, walks on the beach to pick up shells and see the dolphins dipping in and out of the surf, and days beginning with sunrises shadowing pelicans fishing the surface of the water and ending with the colors of the sunset over a glassy sea call to me.

Travel magazines help but don't help. As an armchair traveler, I can explore Jamaica or Costa Rica or Sarajevo and appreciate a diversity of nature, culture, and people. A good writer can even take me there for an hour. But it's just not the same as being there . . . I wonder if I can hold out.