Cupcake & Wine Tasting! Awesome Combination!

This is was my second experience (and Just Baked's) at their Wine & Cupcake Tasting. I enjoyed this one much more than the first for several reasons which I will come back to in a minute.

Just Baked Cupcakes in Cornelius has this fantastic wine & cupcakes tasting featuring their own home made cupcakes and a different winery each month. Their first one was last month and featured wines from Sweet Vine Winery which was good, but I like sweet wines so when I heard one of my favorite muscadine wineries was hosting this month, Rocky River Vineyard, I was totally pumped.

I had bid on a silent auction for a wine tasting for 12 at the 2009 NC Governor's Conference for Tourism and won. Six of us ended up going that September and had a blast. Kim Palumbo & staff really treated us like royalty. They set us out on the screened porch overlooking their beautiful winery on that gorgeous fall day. Their tasting is usually $6 which includes 9 wines and a souvenier glass but since we only had 6 people and the tasting was technically for 12, they let us do the tasting and each have a glass of our favorite wine. Now THAT is customer service. We bought a total of 8 more bottles of wine, 3 of which we drank there relaxing and enjoying the fantastic fall day and 5 bottles that we took with us.

Back to Just Baked's Cupcake & Wine Tasting . . . For $5 you get pretty much all the "baby" cupcakes you can eat and depending on the winery, at least 5 tastings of different wines. Bill Elliott, one of the owners of Rocky River was the ultimate host. He said you could have as much as you want of what I call the "communion cup" sizes or you could buy a glass for $5 that included one of their very cool souvenier glasses or you could buy a bottle. We did all of the above :) Miss Miss & I shared a bottle of White Gold, a sweet white muscadine. Amy bought one of only 2 bottle of the Fire Engine Red which reminded me of a robust red port wine. Bill didn't have enough bottles of that for tasting but Amy so graciously shared hers and once I tasted it I went and bought the other bottle home to my hubby who loves a good port wine! Debmac also bought a glass of the White Gold. Martha who doesn't like sweet wines enjoyed a glass of Cabernet which is another thing I like about Rocky River, they have some very tasty dry wines such as the Cabernet and a Charonnay as well as a nice Merlot. Cat, whom I met for the first time and must say, felt was a bit of a kindred soul (she scored a plate of mini cupcakes for me to take home!) came with her sister and her Mom (whom I did not get her name but felt like she was one of my Pennsylvania Italian aunts and am looking forward to hanging out with again!) I think her Mom bought a glass of one of the whites. It's interesting because I didn't see people buying glasses & bottles the first tasting. I know I wasn't interested only because as I stated earlier, I only like sweet wine, but I'm not sure that was even an option. Bill was great in letting us know all the options he had which I think helped his sales a lot.

For your $5 for the cupcake & wine tasting you get to taste all 5 wines paired with 5 different flavored cupcakes. All of Just Baked Cupcakes are so tasty & moist. They just melt in your mouth. Tonights features were Peaches & Cream that was paired with the White Zinfandel. Vanilla Vanilla paired with Rocking Red (which was my favorite until I tried the Fire Engine Red tonight) Chocolate Strawberry paired with White Gold. Signature Chocolate paired with Scarlett. Just Baked always does one cupcake incorporating one of the wines from the winery. Their Blackberry Cabernet was infused with Rocky Rivers Cabernet Savingon. A delectable combination!

I also need to mention Just Baked gives away door prizes. They refined this to where it was super fun by giving 4 separate ones every 30 minutes. You need to be present during the 2 hour event to win! The four prizes included a bottle of wine from Rocky River, a $20 gift card from Bebe Gallini and two prizes of (6) cupcakes and a free latte from Just Baked. To me the prizes were just "icing on the cupcakes" A fun bonus to an even funner event. I do believe their next one is scheduled for April 5th. You can "like" them on Facebook or follow them on www.justbakedlkn.com


Rocky River Vineyards website is: www.rockyrivervineyards.com


So for a fun, cheap, mid week date, or as we have turned it into, Girl's Night Out, I highly recommend this event! I mentioned my $10 and under rule in one of my previous blogs, I also have a $5 and under rule and this one totally rocks it! Thanks Missy & Chris for coming up with this and being such wonderful hosts!