I never thought I'd go on an Elderhostel trip - bicycle tours and old-school dormitories aren't for me. But that was the old Elderhostel, first started at the University of New Hampshire way back in 1975.
The new Elderhostel isn't even called Elderhostel anymore; the new name is Exploritas (a combination of the word "explore" and the Latin word for "truth," veritas) - apparently an attempt to appeal to younger customers.
Exploritas offers nearly 8,000 learning adventures every year in all 50 U.S. states and in more than 90 countries. Its educational programs include discovery of natural and cultural diversity in national parks and in cities, learning new skills or brushing up on old hobbies and intergenerational tours with adult children or grandchildren.
Over the New Year's holiday this year we journeyed to California's Napa Valley for an Exploritas program called "Life is a Cabernet, The Wonderful World of Wine."
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This was our first Exploritas trip, and we had a great time, learned a lot and were very impressed. More Exploritas trips in our future?
It was a six-day course - a combination of lectures, hosted wine-tasting tours along the Napa Valley and a little free time to explore on our own. The lecturers were all experts, good teachers and obviously passionate about what they do.
Sessions on pairing wine and food were particularly noteworthy because we got samples of different wine varietals and foods to taste - a practical and fun way to explore combinations. We tasted (individually) tannin, acid, sugar and alcohol, learning to recognize those flavors in wine and when the overall taste of the wine is "balanced."
We toured and tasted at three (of close to 500 total) Napa Valley wineries to "apply" our learning. Pat and I visited a fourth winery during one of our two free-time half-days.
We were part of a delightful group of 28 people (age range between 55 and 85 is my guess), many of them singles. At a get-together after our first dinner, several attendees introduced themselves as winos. Turned out they meant they were part of a club - Wine Investigation for Novices and Oenophiles. As we realized later, others should have introduced themselves as winos too - the other kind.
Our accommodations for the week were the Embassy Suites in Napa - no old-school dorm there. Among other amenities, it offered free cocktails for two hours each evening. You should have seen our group stocking up on wine from the bar to take into dinner each night.
And speaking of dinner, Exploritas shined there, too. We had a very tasty menu each night of well-prepared food served in one of the hotel's private rooms.
On New Year's Eve, we had a party, complete with crazy hats, streamers to throw and noisemakers. But I think most of us non-night-owls celebrated the new year in our hotel rooms, watching on TV as the Waterford Crystal ball descended at Times Square in New York City.
The trip cost $841 each, including five nights and 15 meals - a little higher than normal because it was over the New Year's holiday.
The bottom line of our educational experience: Wine is an individual taste; don't let anyone try to tell you what you should like or what wine-food pairings are a no-no. And luckily for our pocketbook, Pat and I decided that even with all the great wines we tasted in Napa Valley, we like the inexpensive favorites we get in Tucson just as much.
E-mail Bob Ring at ringbob1@aol.com or view his Web site, ringbrothershistory.com
