Cape Cod

We just returned from 3 hot and hair-kinkingly humid days on Cape Cod, in Truro to be precise, very near the Cape Cod National Seashore, way out on the eastern extreme of New England. But lest you get a picture that it was anything at all approaching frontier-like, let me adjust that image a bit.

We stayed in a motel resort, of sorts, one that had seen better days--like maybe the 1960's. Kalmar Village is one of hundreds of indistinguishable "family vacation resorts" stretching along the narrow strip of highway called Route 6A, with the National Seashore sand dunes looking every bit like a Hollywood movie-lot on one side, and the seaweed and kelp-strewn bay a stone's throw away on the other. Our room did have free WiFi, and a window air conditioner, which was a life-saver during those 3 days.

We were on the Cape for a partial family reunion--my husband's family. There were 12 of us in all and we ranged in age from 3-63. We did child-friendly activities and ate in child-proof restaurants, which was fine. One adult thing we did, though, was visit a local winery. Yes, there is a bona fide vineyard and winery on Cape Cod, Massachusetts, that makes rather OK wine (just like there are really good wineries in many surprising locations throughout the USA, like the Black Mesa Winery in New Mexico, for example, where I had a delicious Cab. and an excellent Port; or in North Carolina where I had a Cab. Franc that hinted of the tobacco that used to grow in the same fields now growing grapes).

All 12 of us descended upon Truro Vineyard, which happened to be down the road from Kalmar Village.

The winery offers tastings of 5 of their wines for $7 per person (you get to keep the glass, too). Two of their wines are sold to tourists in kitchy, blue-glass bottles made in the shape of a lighthouse (in honor of the nearby Highland Lighthouse pictured above in the first photo taken by Jeremy D'Entremont. The lighthouse is famous for having been dragged several hundred feet over a 19-day period in 1996 to escape the edge of the cliff which was slowly eroding).

Now seriously, would you buy wine sold in a bottle that looked like this? What a surprise then to find that Truro's 2008 Diamond White was so good. Diamond White, also known as Moore's Diamond, is a white American variety of grape. The grape dates to 1885 when Jacob Moore of Brighton, NY crossed Concord grapes with the Iona grape. Today it is grown mainly in Pennsylvania and New York, which is where Truro Vineyards gets its grapes for this wine.
The wine was slightly sweet, fruity and was excellent with pate and cranberry-flecked Wensleydale--just right for a hot August afternoon, relaxing with kids, family, and slightly sweet local wine.