July 9, 2007

We hope that in the next day or so we’ll have permission from the Utah & Washington courts to take Trevan out of state.  (Pics of Trevan in my July 6 posting.)  In the meantime, we’ve made a few excursions.  We had excellent Mexican food at the Red Iguana in Salt Lake City; I had the poblano mole… mmm. 

When Mac was born in southern California, we went to a couple wineries in the Temecula area.  We keep one of those bottles in our rack to open when Mac turns five.  When we open it, the idea is to both celebrate the gift of Mac, but also — while we sip — to reflect on the struggles, resolution and blessings that have occured since then.  We decided to try to keep the tradition with Trevan and searched for a Utah winery somewhere nearby. 

We knew there wouldn’t be many wineries because of all the state restrictions on alcohol.  Many of those restrictions have eased, especially after preparations for the 2002 Winter Olympics, and to encourage tourism.  As a result, there are quite a few brewery-restaurants; we’ve eaten at 2 so far.  Yesterday, we had dinner at the Redrock Brewer, SLC.  I ordered a warm shrimp salad and Pauline had a steak.  The pale ale was less hoppy than most, but had a very nice flavor and creamy texture.

As for wineries, there are about 3-5 in the whole state.  1 in SLC is more of a restaraunt that has one wine with their own label; (grapes are from out of state).  The 2nd in SLC wouldn’t answer the phone when we tried to call, and the address led to a private residence without any signage, so we left.  There are 2 listed in southern Utah near Moab, too far for us to travel.  We learned later that at least 1 of these 2 imports their wine, and only ages it for a bit in their barrels to call it their own.

We finally settled on Native Wines in Mount Pleasant, UT - about 1.5 hours south of SLC - a small-production fruit winery owned by Bob Sorenson and Winnie Wood.  The drive to Mount Pleasant reminded me quite a bit of the trips we make to the Yakima, WA area.  Unlike a lot of sweet fruit wines, their goal is to use grown and wild fruits to make more dry and complex wines.  We thought most of what we tasted was pretty good.  We purchased their “Forgotten Apple” (a barrel Bob had misplaced for about 4 years), wild chokecherry, and sweet cherry wines.  We really enjoyed our visit with Bob who told us that the soil and landscape of the area might be good for Riesling and Gewurztraminer vines, but most of the limitations are due to an apparent lack of interest along with the danger of freezes which can occur in late spring all the way into early summer.

On the way back we stopped at a great dinosaur and ancient creatures’ museum in Lehi, UT.  It looked like there were a number of different museums grouped in the area - Thanksgiving Point.  We were wishing Mac was with us; they had great interactive rooms and activities throughout, and the dinosaur models and information were very up-to-date and well displayed.

Today, we’re going shopping around the Trolley Square area.