A couple weeks ago I headed to my friend’s family lake house in the Poconos for Split Rock Resort’s annual Wine & Food Festival. A couple of my friends have gone for years, but this is the first time I was able to make it, and I couldn’t wait.

Despite the heat, we set out to spend the day drinking wine and eating delicious food. After waiting in a small line, we got our wine glasses and headed to the first tent. Each tent represents different wineries throughout the tri-state area where you could taste-test all the wines and even buy some bottles to take home.

The first tent we went to had about 15 different wines you could sample. It had classics like Red Blend, Malbec, Pinot Grigio, Sauvignon Blanc, etc., but it also had fun flavors like cherry, blueberry, blackberry, chocolate cherry, dark cherry, peach and more. We ended up staying at the tent for a long time trying all the fun flavors. We eventually got a bottle of the dark cherry to split before we headed to the next tent.

We bopped around from tent to tent trying different wines, comparing them to others and sharing our opinions on which ones we liked and didn’t like.

After a little bit we decided to take a break from wine and check out the food area. When we got there, we saw the tent we’d been searching for the whole time. Last year my friends got permanent toe rings that were so cute, and we all couldn’t wait to get one this year. There was a little bit of a wait, so we put our name in and went to get food and more wine samples.

When it was time for us to get our toe rings, we each picked what we wanted but had to split up because we had such a large party. I was in the first group; so after I was done, one friend and I headed out to explore more.

By the time we were done, we were tired of sampling wine and wanted to go listen to the band, so we bought some bottles and headed over. We danced and enjoyed our wine until the end of the event and then headed home.

I had such a great time, I can’t wait for next year!

— Mary Melnick, social media & editorial coordinator