Anniversary Trip Part I: Cave Vineyard

It's hard to believe that Mr. VB and I have already been married for four years! It seems like it was just yesterday that we were wrapping up our wedding and honeymoon in Hawaii and frantically getting our first house ready for our open house/reception. I remember within an hour of closing on that house, we were ripping up the carpet to reveal hardwood floors drilled w/ hundreds of nails. So, needless to say, we had a ton of work to do before we had people over. I won't even mention the pink bathroom and the lace curtains. But, I digress.

Both of us are in major need of a vacation right now, so we took a quick trip down to Ste. Genevieve, Mo to  Cave Vineyard. (I'll tell you more about the cute B&B and antique stores in Part II).

 Cave Vineyard was our first (and last) winery stop of the day, which had to do with the fact it was 95+ degrees outside and a cool 70 degrees in the cave. That's right. We sat in a cave all day. Drinking wine. There was even a bat flying around. I hate bats. It was awesome.

We started the day off with a wine tasting in the tasting room. The vineyard boasts 4 varieties of grapes: Chardonel, Traminette, Chambourcin and Cynthiana/Norton.

Then we grabbed a bottle of the White Chambourcin and headed down to the natural cave! It is a short 200-yard walk and a shuttle was also running throughout the day. This helps on the way back up the hill to the tasting room, if you needed more wine. Which we did. Twice.

It looks a little like the tunnel Jacob brought Jack to in Lost...but, it wasn't nearly as scary. Except for that bat flying around.

They also have live music on the weekends -- another reason why we didn't want to leave. We had a front-row seat to all of our favorite songs, including tunes from Jack Johnson, the Beatles, Neil Young and Jason Mraz.

You might be asking yourself "Why is that guy playing under an umbrella while standing in a cave?" As we were underground, in a living cave, the ceiling of the cave continuously dripped water. Not so much that we were drenched. More like a drip here and there. Here I am wondering about that:

While we had planned to visit two more wineries that day, we just couldn't leave the cave! Stay tuned for Part II!