Murder (Mystery Dinner) in the Mountains

So, I've always wanted to go to a murder-mystery dinner. They just always sounded like a fun, interesting time to me, so when I saw a Groupon pop up for one at Christian W. Klay winery, I jumped on it...except by the time I saw it, it already sold out. But then it popped up again, I'm guessing because the winery realized Groupon promotion was a huge success.

I realized after I bought it that I probably should've check the menu first since I'm a vegetarian, but I lucked out and it was buffet. Buffet for a vegetarian usually means worst-case scenario, you'll get a veggie and probably pasta...and pasta is my favorite anyway.

I started to get antsy the day of when I looked up reviews. The winery itself scored okay, but some complained that the murder-mystery dinner was too cheesy and the food wasn't great. I say these people are mostly uppity, negative humans.

This wasn't just my first murder-mystery dinner--it was my first visit to a winery, so I'm definitely out of my level of expertise here. My experience with wine is generally having one glass, getting drunk off that, then getting really tired and wanting to take a nap. Most wines taste the same to me. I could describe moonshine a hell of a lot better than I could a wine, like a true Fayettenamese. I mean, I'm pretty sure most wineries aren't barns in the mountains like Christian Klay is, but this is Fayette County. Everything is in barns here. My aunt runs a dress shop out of a barn...and I got all my prom and formal dresses there because it's great, and you should go and tell her I sent you.

Now, a barn in the mountains in October is naturally gonna be a bit cold, but they warmed it well. We were seated six to a table, which I wasn't thrilled with initially, but it did end up being a neat way to talk to people. Everyone at our table was a first-time visitor, and they were all nice to talk to.

The night started with a wine tasting. We got to try nine wines, and my boyfriend and I kept a tally of which ones we liked. Both other couples at our table bought wine early on and offered us a taste of that, which ended up being the table favorite--Summit Mist. It's so good. I highly recommend it. My other favorite was the Raspberry Frost. We meant to buy ourselves some at the end of the dinner, but it ran a bit longer than we thought and we both had to be up for work early the next morning, so we decided we'll head back up another time. Maybe we'll get to try the Spiced Apple then, too, since they were running low and weren't offering it for the tasting.

And then we had dinner, which wasn't as terrible as online reviews suggested but wasn't necessarily impressive, either. Then again, the main draw is the wine and the murder mystery, isn't it? Especially when everyone ends up a little buzzed.

And the murder-mystery part was fun. Yes, it was a little cheesy like the other reviews said, but not so much so that it was bad or unenjoyable, especially considering it's pre-Halloween dinner theater. Actually, I thought it was the perfect level of cheesy to make it fun and not super serious. You want to enjoy the night, not feel like you're really in the midst of a murderer.

Of course, we were wrong about who the murderer was, and I blame overthinking--not the wine. We disregarded the most obvious suspect because--and this is the downfall of being bookworms and writers--we thought it was a red herring, a suspect meant to throw us off. That said, our theory as to who did it was pretty solid.

Maybe we'll do better next year and stock up on that Summit Mist.

If you want to check it out for yourself, you have the next two weekends to get yourself up there...and bring me some Summit Mist.