For Father's Day, Tobias asked for a camping trip. Because I teach choir at church every Sunday, it's not easy to get away on a Saturday night. I usually have other weekend commitments as well, and I have to make a lot of phone calls and emails in order to sneak out of the city on a Saturday night. But that's not what this post is about. It's about where we went on our way back from camping: Merridale Cidery. It was our first visit to this very popular stop on the island wine tour, and man, was I surprised.
First of all, when you arrive, a young woman meets your car at the gate and welcomes you, then radios down to see if they have a parking spot for you. Then, you drive down a little gravel road and another person meets you at the bottom and directs you to the parking spot. Since there were loads of people (and cars) there this weekend -- they were celebrating the summer solstice -- this help with the parking was much appreciated.
Then, you get to look around at the extremely attractive grounds surrounding the cidery and orchards. They have orchard tours, a bistro that I'm dying to try out, and, of course, tastings. They have obviously got a marketing genius on staff there, because everything is so well-done, and so much grander and more exciting than any of the other wineries around.
They've even thought about how to amuse and enchant kids, which is not a target market that a lot of adult-oriented attractions think about. But the longer the kids are happy, the longer mom and dad can shop, and more businesses should realize this, I think. (DEATH to grocery stores without infant seat carts!) The way Merridale appeals to kids is by creating this story about fairies that work in the orchard. They have pretty little signs up everywhere talking about how to spot fairies (I can't do "faeries" as they do, it's just too cheesy) and they have a fairy house and a fairy general store and all of this sort of dreck that I usually think is really stupid. But when you have an almost-seven-year-old who is heavily into fairies at the moment, it's not stupid, it's magical.
And the cider tastes great! Really, surprisingly great! We tried the Cidre Normandie, the Traditional Cider, the Scrumpy, the MerriBerri, the Cyser, and the Winter Apple. All were very tasty. We bought a bottle each of Traditional, Cyser and Winter Apple for ourselves, a bottle of the MerriBerri for Abu, and a bottle of the Winter Apple for my dad for his Father's Day gift.
Once home on Sunday, we popped a bottle of the Cyser (honey cider) into the freezer for a bit, then split the bottle between us while the kids visited with Abu. Sahsez gave Tobias six Riedel Riesling glasses for Father's Day, and we drank the cider out of these. It was as cold as the dickens. The woman who did our tasting said that with the Cyser you should hold it in your mouth for a second to melt the honey and get the sweetness out of it. It really does make a difference to the flavour when you do this. We had some on its own, then with some salty peanuts. The peanuts were a good match.
Last night, after a particularly hectic evening (Tae Kwon-Do, a dinner guest, five separate unexpected pop-in guests, topped off by a baby that absolutely did not want to go to bed), Tobias and treated ourselves to an adults-only dessert. No, I didn't cover myself in whipped cream or chocolate body paint (that's next week), we just had some plain vanilla ice cream, topped with a generous splash of the winter apple cider, which is like an apple liquer.
For me, this was ambrosial. For Tobias, who does not like boozy sweets, it was simply "pretty good". High praise from a trifle/crepes Suzette/flambee-anything hater. Even better, I think, would be a scoop of ice cream in one of those teeny little dark chocolate cups you can buy at the grocery store. I'll have to try that soon.
I'll have to return to Merridale soon, as well. We made the idiotic decision to eat brunch in Nanaimo before we headed down-Island, so weren't able to partake of this barbecue they had going on at the cidery. Seeing the pizza oven was like a dagger in my heart, especially because the Nanaimo brunch was so untasty. I see they have Sunday pizza nights all summer. Can't wait!
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