Saturday 2/23/08
We had another beautiful week end. The weather was gorgeous and warm on Saturday. The sun was shining brightly although the wind was a bit too chilly to go to the beach as we had originally planned. So instead we headed over to DeFuniak Springs to tour the Chautauqua Winery and Vineyards. And of course do some taste testing. DeFuniak is about 40 miles east of here on I10. We've been past it twice but Saturday was the first time we actually drove that far in the daylight. Both the other times we'd left home in the wee morning hours before the sun came up. So this time we got to enjoy the view of the pine forests of both sides of the highway. The winery is located right off the interstate so we had no trouble finding it. They offered free wine tasting so we could sample away and pick out our favorites. They had some honey wine we'd been looking for and it was heavenly. We bought several bottles. All together we got a dozen bottles of assorted wines so we could get the deal price and stock up as we had drank our last stashed bottle the night we watched the lunar eclipse.
The name Chautauqua was chosen for the vineyards and winery because DeFuniak Springs was the permanent home of the Winter Assembly of the Chautauqua Assembly in "The Land of Summer" from 1885 to 1928. The Chautauqua Assembly had it's beginning in Chautauqua County New York. If you're curious to some of the details I've included this link to "History of Chautauqua in Defuniak Springs"
Many turn of the century homes and the Chautauqua "Hall of Brotherhood" still stand, gracing the naturally formed, perfectly round lake that is in the center of the city along with the old train depot, library & ornate churches.
The 40 acre vineyard was planted in 1979 and is located 12 miles north of DeFuniak Springs. The grapes grown by Chautauqua are Muscadine varieties. Muscadine grapes are native and found growing wild in most areas of the southwestern states. I hadn't realized till we got down here that Florida has such an extensive "wine country" A bonus for us since we both enjoy learning about and sampling wines. The variety of grapes grown by Chautauqua, Carlos and Nobel are improved varieties selected and propagated by the native grapes.
Carlos is a white muscadine variety used for juice and wine and is similar to the well known "scuppernong" muscadine. Nobel is a red muscadine variety and is known for it's full and festive flavor.
At the winery in DeFuniak the grapes are crushed and pressed in a state of the art facility which we got to see through an observation room where we also viewed a video showing the stages of processing. The winery was constructed in 1989 and boasts over 70,000 gallons of temperature controlled stainless steel cooperage as well as over 1,980 gallons of barrels for oak aging.
The current wine press was added in 2004 and is a 12,000 liter Europress custom built for Chautauqua by the Scharfenberger Company of Germany. It's currently the largest press of it's kind east of the Rocky Mountains. This press can extract the juice from over 30 tons of fresh grapes, or 35 tons of fermented grapes in a single load.
The vineyards and winery are owned by Paul and Kate Owens of Brewton Alabama.
It was a thrill to learn all about the operation and see pictures of the harvest and festivals that revolve around the harvest time in the area.
When we left the winery we headed into town to check out the Lake. It's one of two naturally formed, round, spring fed lakes in the entire WORLD. (The other one is in Zurich.) A perfect circle. There's a road that goes completely around it and it's lined with turn of the century homes and Victorian architecture. The sidewalk around the lake is exactly 9/10th of a mile
We walked out on the board walk to the little gazebo on the lake and saw Muscovy ducks. They are certainly odd looking. Chuck said they had them in Wisconsin when he was a boy but I've never seen them before. They were pretty hissy when you got close to them and Chuck thought they probably had nests they were protecting. We also saw loons way out in the middle of the lake but they had their winter plumage still and we couldn't see them distinctly . I was hoping to hear some call but they never did. When we were out on the board walk we met an interesting woman who filled us full of all kinds of information on the history of DeFuniak and the Chautauquans. She told us about the lake and how it had been formed. She said it was sitting over the caverns of lime fields that are in what she called their "basement" and that it was connected underground to the Blackwater River. She said in recent times deep sea divers had gone down into the lake and entered the caverns and swam all the way out to the Gulf of Mexico. I certainly intend to do a bit of research on that. I know it will be quite interesting.
The old train depot where thousands of people used to arrive for the annual Chautauqua Winter Assemblies has been made into a museum of area treasures and cultures and history. I wasn't able to get many good pictures in there as the lighting was poor. We did however manage to snap a picture of an ancient aerial shot of the round lake which turned out quite nicely.
When the railroad began operation in 1882, the train stopped in a little town called "Open Pond," named for the almost perfectly round freshwater, spring-fed lake located in the center of town and within sight of the train depot. The town's name was changed to DeFuniak Springs in honor of the Chief Engineer of the L&N Railroad, Frederick deFuniak. The road encircling the lake is appropriately called Circle Drive. T. T. Wright, was an early developer of the Florida Chautauqua and Defuniak Springs. Circle Drive was originally named Wright Avenue in his honor
The town holds several antique stores which we poked our way through. As a side note, the nice part about living in the motor home is being able to enjoy the merchandise but not having room to buy it and bring it home. Chuck and I both enjoy browsing and sharing discoveries with each other and leaving with nothing more than a few choice snapshots.
We got in on the tail end of a concert in the Chautauqua "Hall of Brotherhood" It was old Victorian music played on antique instruments. They were serenading out on the large back porch area and the music drifted over the grounds making a delightful background to our history lessons. The day was quite a bit more enjoyable than just a simple drive over to get a few bottles of wine which is all we had originally intended.
One thing I have to make mention of is the smell that permeated the town. At first, when we were at the winery I thought it was the smell of the wine and the potpourri they were selling in the gift shop and the grapevines out front. The grapes however don't produce fruit till August and they didn't appear to be blooming and it was just a small patch for show as the real vineyard is miles from there. When we got in town around the lake I could still smell it. Something was in bloom that smelled heavenly. The Camilla's were blooming everywhere we looked but they don't have much of an odor. I even went up and smelled a few to see if maybe they were a strain that did have a fragrance but it wasn't them. I have no idea what it was but I could go on smelling it forever it was so pleasant. Between the perfume and the music and the variety of birds and ducks we got to see along with the history and turn of the (20th) century architecture I would highly recommend a trip to DeFuniak to anyone passing through this area.
I've put together a slide presentation of our photos and some photos I got from the Internet to show you the sights we enjoyed. Click on the link below to get to them.
1 comment:
Excellent! You're really getting good at this blogging stuff. It seems this would be a very worthwhile trip for anyone who might be visiting in the vicinity.
As always, thanks for sharing your experience and again, a nice job in presenting it.
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