One New York Life

With traffic for the Wine and Cheese Festival starting to pick-up around the lake, we pulled in to Glenora Wine Cellar at about 3 PM. We considered stopping at one more winery, but then consulted our map and discovered additional wineries a half-mile in either direction from Glenora. If we wanted to visit another, we could walk the “avenue block” and skip extra questionable driving. This would be when we first noticed that wineries separated by a half-mile or less didn’t actually have a sidewalk between them. If we’d gone, we would have had to walk on the road’s shoulder. We did not go.

Glenora is a relatively small resort compared to the Belhurst. The resort features only thirty rooms. Looking at the accomodations section — the “Vintner Guestrooms” are housed in the foreground building. Our room (and all of them, I think) featured a private balcony overlooking the vineyard and lake, two queen beds, a gigantic bathroom, a complimentary wine tasting (at the building in the background to the left), a complimentary glass of champagne on check-in, a complimentary glass of port each evening, and a complimentary bottle of wine in your refrigerator.

This place was gorgeous. Maybe it was the combination of the awesome weather, the out-of-season price, and the right amount of wine over two days, but I loved almost everything about the stay. Sitting out on the balcony in silence overlooking nature was one of the more relaxing evenings I’ve ever had. It even featured a lightning storm over the open plains. The breathtaking natural fireworks show lit up the lake and the surrounding landscape. If you’ve never seen a lightning storm, it’s seeing something like this without any accompanying thunder or rain. The vast openness of the landscape added to it. It’s the best view I’ve had of one of these storms. I’ve mentioned before — even around Albany and Saratoga you’re surrounded by the foothills of the Adirondacks. It’s not completely open like Central NY’s landscape. It’s just lake, open land, and a completely unobstructed view of lightning. I could have watched it for days.

My only complaint about this place was the restaurant, Veraisons. While the food was excellent (I only got a medium-rare steak, which a chef would really have to work at to screw up), the service was terrible. Everything with our server took far too long. It took forever for her to take a drink order, to deliver the wine, to take a dinner order, to take a dessert order, to bring a check, to take the check. Nothing is more frustrating than awkwardly sitting at a dinner table when dinner’s done and the wine bottle is empty and the conversation becomes different incarnations of “where’s the waitress”. I think the service would be unacceptable even to people outside the waitress capital of the world. It took the restaurant down from a good-but-forgettable experience to a terrible two-star one. It ruined what was otherwise a great overnight stay.

However, the room-service breakfast was top-notch. We ordered breakfast at 9:00 am and it arrived around 9:20 am. In fact, it arrived before I had a chance to go to the front desk and get small bill for a cash tip. I ordered my new favorite breakfast meal — Johnny Cakes. I highly recommend them. Take corn-muffin batter and make a pancake out of it — then serve it with fruit and syrup. Awesome.

I loved this place. As we were leaving, I noticed that one of the staff was selling a couple on the benefits of having a wedding reception here. Other than the 15-hour drive from Albany — sold.