During the ride to Middleton Plantation, something amazing happened. The clouds parted allowing the warm sunshine to break through. It turned out to be a picturesque day to say the least! After a quick "before" photo, we were off to explore the gardens and grounds. Ellen, our tour guide, lead us to the Camilla Garden which was at it's peak during our visit. Sadly, we were a bit too early for the Azaleas and the Rose Gardens. Oh well, now we have an excuse to go back.
Not even 100 feet into the tour, we were already commenting on the incredible beauty of the landscape. It was so peaceful, you couldn't help imagining the old days when the grounds were probably buzzing with activity. What a glorious age...Unless of course you were one of the 100 slaves in charge of creating and then maintaining the glorious gardens. I imagine they weren't too thrilled with the project or life in general, and that's putting it mildly. Of course, the plantation maintains that they have very little information about the plantation during the era of slavery. To me, that translates to "We don't like to talk about that. So let's move along with the tour."
Today, there are only 10 people on staff to the care for the plantation. Although, it seems like there are quite a few volunteers like Ellen, our guide, that are willing to lend a helping hand.
Everywhere you look, there's a breathtaking view: sunny formal gardens with perfectly manicured hedges, massive twisted old oak trees, flowers in every color of the rainbow, winding rivers and shaded ponds, a hundred of so bottles of wine just begging to be sampled. I tell you, it was HEAVEN!
We started to question how any of the other festival events could possibly top our visit to the plantation, and we had only been there 20 minutes! As we made our way from tasting station to station, we sipped our wine and snapped pictures of everything in a desperate attempt to somehow capture a little piece of the extraordinary time and take it home with us.
We walked the path along the flooded rice fields that run parallel to the river and eventually stumbled upon the famous statue of the Wood Nymph which was hidden to protect it from destruction by the Union soldiers during the Civil War. So many history lessons occurred at that very site and in the surrounding area. I'd share some the details, but history class also doubled as time to write my friends notes in high school. Dang it! I knew that would come back to haunt me. Oh well, watch Gone With The Wind. You'll get the basics. Ha!
This was the view from the last tasting station before we took a break for lunch. That's right, not the last wine station just the last stop prior to the dining tent. We had only visited about half of the stations by that point, but we didn't want to miss a thing and feared the dining room would run out of the good stuff.
Today, there are only 10 people on staff to the care for the plantation. Although, it seems like there are quite a few volunteers like Ellen, our guide, that are willing to lend a helping hand.Everywhere you look, there's a breathtaking view: sunny formal gardens with perfectly manicured hedges, massive twisted old oak trees, flowers in every color of the rainbow, winding rivers and shaded ponds, a hundred of so bottles of wine just begging to be sampled. I tell you, it was HEAVEN!We started to question how any of the other festival events could possibly top our visit to the plantation, and we had only been there 20 minutes! As we made our way from tasting station to station, we sipped our wine and snapped pictures of everything in a desperate attempt to somehow capture a little piece of the extraordinary time and take it home with us.We walked the path along the flooded rice fields that run parallel to the river and eventually stumbled upon the famous statue of the Wood Nymph which was hidden to protect it from destruction by the Union soldiers during the Civil War. So many history lessons occurred at that very site and in the surrounding area. I'd share some the details, but history class also doubled as time to write my friends notes in high school. Dang it! I knew that would come back to haunt me. Oh well, watch Gone With The Wind. You'll get the basics. Ha!This was the view from the last tasting station before we took a break for lunch. That's right, not the last wine station just the last stop prior to the dining tent. We had only visited about half of the stations by that point, but we didn't want to miss a thing and feared the dining room would run out of the good stuff.We could not have been more wrong. The event organizers did an excellent job and planned for everything. We wandered from food station to food station sampling the offerings, and then went back for seconds of our favorites. Parched from all the tasty treats, we made a stop by the wine bar for a few more samples before back out into the sunshine for round two of Wine Around Garden tour.
On the way to the main house, we passed a simple cabin known as Eliza's House. The house is named for the last known occupant a former slave from the plantation. The sign in front of the house seemed to gloss over the fact that it once housed slaves and instead focused on the more recent tenants that were merely descendants of slaves. We can't rewrite history, but they certainly made an attempt or two to whitewash it just like the cabin walls.
The mansion itself was off limits to us without purchasing an additional ticket. I guess they didn't want a bunch of "drunks" in close proximity to priceless antiques. Probably a good call on their part!
The back yard was more impressive to us anyway. The mansion overlooks the famed Butterfly Lakes, named for the flying beauty that inspired the shape of the man-made ponds. Unfortunately, an aerial view was not available and my iPhone lacked the wide lens necessary for the shot. You'll just have to take my word for it.
Our final station looked directly out on the Butterfly Lakes, and we couldn't help lingering. The view was impressive, we weren't ready to head back to the shuttle and leave this amazing spot, and the wine was really flowing by that point. At the start of the event, samples had been the typical small pours that one would expect. As the day went on, the pours became more and more generous. One event volunteer even joked, "Well, they told me to do what it takes to make people happy. I'm just doing my job!"
Nineteen stations and a dining tent with no less than 4 wines to sample at each stop. You do the math because we certainly couldn't be that point in the day! As you can imagine, the crowd that was tame and quiet on the ride out had been transformed into a massive collection of Chatty Cathys!
As much as we hated the thought, we had to call it a day and head back to the trolley. You might remember that I shared a "before" picture at the beginning of this entry. Well, this isn't technically the photo that I had planned to use as the "after," but I gave my word that I wouldn't post "that" photo of two sleeping beauties on the shuttle. So, this one will just have to do. It was quite a day, and I'm grateful we shared in it together. I'm sure we'll cherish these memories for years to come...hopefully over a glass of wine.
On the way to the main house, we passed a simple cabin known as Eliza's House. The house is named for the last known occupant a former slave from the plantation. The sign in front of the house seemed to gloss over the fact that it once housed slaves and instead focused on the more recent tenants that were merely descendants of slaves. We can't rewrite history, but they certainly made an attempt or two to whitewash it just like the cabin walls.The mansion itself was off limits to us without purchasing an additional ticket. I guess they didn't want a bunch of "drunks" in close proximity to priceless antiques. Probably a good call on their part!The back yard was more impressive to us anyway. The mansion overlooks the famed Butterfly Lakes, named for the flying beauty that inspired the shape of the man-made ponds. Unfortunately, an aerial view was not available and my iPhone lacked the wide lens necessary for the shot. You'll just have to take my word for it.Our final station looked directly out on the Butterfly Lakes, and we couldn't help lingering. The view was impressive, we weren't ready to head back to the shuttle and leave this amazing spot, and the wine was really flowing by that point. At the start of the event, samples had been the typical small pours that one would expect. As the day went on, the pours became more and more generous. One event volunteer even joked, "Well, they told me to do what it takes to make people happy. I'm just doing my job!"Nineteen stations and a dining tent with no less than 4 wines to sample at each stop. You do the math because we certainly couldn't be that point in the day! As you can imagine, the crowd that was tame and quiet on the ride out had been transformed into a massive collection of Chatty Cathys!As much as we hated the thought, we had to call it a day and head back to the trolley. You might remember that I shared a "before" picture at the beginning of this entry. Well, this isn't technically the photo that I had planned to use as the "after," but I gave my word that I wouldn't post "that" photo of two sleeping beauties on the shuttle. So, this one will just have to do. It was quite a day, and I'm grateful we shared in it together. I'm sure we'll cherish these memories for years to come...hopefully over a glass of wine.
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