Look not upon the wine when it is red

I have spent most of the last two days traveling over Carroll, Owen, and Henry Counties in Kentucky, visiting family and sample a couple of the boutique wineries that are popping up along the Kentucky River Valley.

The first one we visited was River Valley Winery, an interprise owned and operated by Vicky and Krasi Georgiev. High on hill above Carrollton, River Valley is so secluded that, unless you know it’s there, you’re unlikely just to stumble across it. But it’s worth the effort to find it.

We sampled the dry reds, and settled on the Cynthiana, a full rich table wine that won a bronze medal in 2005 & 2008 Indianapolis International Wine Competition, a silver medal in 2006 Indianapolis International Wine Competition, and a bronze medal in the 2008 Wines of the South Competition. Even though — or perhaps because — the day was hot, we sipped our wine on the patio looking out over the vineyards. You could see for miles.

The atmosphere is homey. Vicky has deep Owen and Carroll County roots but Krasi is from Bulgaria, and to go with our wine, we were served a cow’s milk feta sprinkled with a mysterious Bulgarian spice sort of like paprika. It was delicious.

The next day we tried out the Smith-Berry tasting room. Smith-Berry is of course and enterprise of the Wendell Berry family, and you can buy limited edition Larkspur Press Broadsides of “Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front” or drop off a book to be signed by Mr. Berry.

This winery is also secluded but, perhaps because it was concert night, the joint was jumping. But we didn’t want to go to the concert or eat the catered dinner. Again, we tasted the dry reds. I was disappointed that their Burley blend was sold out, just because I was curious about a wine named after a tobacco. We settled on a Zinfindel, so new that it doesn’t seem to be listed on the web site. For some reason, I seemed in the mood for rich and complicated tastes this weekend.

And again we sat and sipped and nibbled outdoors in the patio, more of a nook here, hung with flowering vines and surrounded by shrubbery. So, not so much vista, but a very good wine and we were kept company by a polite and friendly hound.

I also bought a bottle of their blackberry wine. Syrupy sweet but delicious for dessert. The Berry granddaughter who served us said she always thought it ought to be served over ice cream.

Later we drove to Madison, Indiana where we ate at an Italian restaurant on the old Main Street — again on the patio. I was amused to see, among the hanging planters and decorative shrubbery, two tremendous poke plants. If there’s a market for poke as décor, I should be in the money.

Finally we took a stroll along Madison’s river walk along the Ohio. It’s a lovely old town, Madison. And I know some decent poets who live there.

I thought it appropriate, after all this driving along two-lane blacktop country roads, to return home this morning and find, in an e-mail from Charlie Hughes of Wind Publications. The e-mail included this link to Charlie’s reading of his poem “Redneck at 60.” It begins

Say you never drove a country road late at night . . .

Charlie has a new book out, Body and Blood