Dallas Wine, Bites, and City Lights Tour

Recently Keltin and I had a wonderful date night on a Dallas by Chocolate tour. This is actually our second tour with this company, the first being before I started McGee Travel Tales. These tours are a ton of fun and a great way to sample new places in Dallas, without having to worry about parking. In addition to tours like our they have BBQ tours, taco & margarita tours, along with a ton of others. This tour took about five hours. A full meal or a single serving of dessert was provided at all the stops but we did get a couple additional.

This tour was called Wine, Bites, and City Lights. The tour began at Urban Vines in Dallas where we paired three wines: rose, white, and red with a charcuterie board and flat bread pizza.

The Wines

• Olema, 2018, Cotes de Provence, Rose – My least favorite of the three wines. I prefer my rose winds slightly sweet and this one wasn’t. It did pair well with the light cheese and fig spread on the charcuterie board.
• Monte Velho, 2019, Portugal, White Blend – My favorite of the three wines. The lady at the winery was telling us that wines from Portugal aren’t too popular yet but they are gaining popularity.
• Black Ridge, California, Merlot – This was a nice red with hits of plum and cherry. It paired wonderfully with the peperoni and bacon flatbread drizzled with balsamic. According to the winery guide this merlot is good chilled and thus good for warm summer days.

The great thing about these tours is that after you arrive at the initial location the tour company buses the group from place to place. After leaving Urban Vines we headed to Kate Weiser Chocolate for a sample of the delicious bonbons.

The Flavors

• Cookie Monster – Vanilla bean ganache with cookie butter crunch.
• Snick Snack – Salted caramel, candied peanuts with milk chocolate peanut butter ganache.
• Lavender and Apricot – Dark chocolate lavender ganache with apricot pate de fruit.

From there we headed to La Tarte Tropzienne across from the giant eye sculpture. This is their flag ship store in the United States. Fun tid-bit about this shop is that after 7 pm their pastries are half price. We were going to take some home with us any but that fact made them sweeter.

The Pastries

• Ganache Tart with Sea Salt – not too sweet and the salt adds a great contrast to the rich dark chocolate.
• Mixed Berry Tart – this was great with hot coffee for breakfast.
• Hazelnut Croissant – Keltin said this was tasty with coffee also, it was wonderfully flakey.

After La Tarte the bus took us down to Lower Greenville where we stop to get some fantastic gelato at Botolino Gelato Artigianale. We have had this gelato before but that does not stop it from being absolutely delicious. Also, parking is this part of Dallas is ridiculously difficult. Being bussed around and not having to fight traffic or pay for parking is awesome. We could sample up to two flavors through the tour but could have purchased more if we wanted.

The Gelato

• Berries and Lavender – This is a fantastic summer flavor.
• Mascarpone and Figs – I could eat more of this than I want to admit.
• Milk Chocolate – Rich and creamy, a wonderful classic flavor.

From Lower Greenville we headed to Deep Ellum for a bit of free time in the area. Deep Ellum is worse to park in than Lower Greenville along with being stupid expensive to park. If you visit the area and are not on a tour I highly suggest doing a ride share. There are a lot of great breweries, restaurants, roof top bars, and speakeasies in this area. Keltin and I wanted a little quite away from the loud birthday group that was on the tour and so we wondered into the Trick Pony for a round of their cocktails.

At the end of the night Dallas by Chocolate bussed us back to Urban Vines. This was a long tour but it is a great way to taste some of the wonderful things that Dallas has to offer without having to search out all these places and try to find parking. If you are looking for a good way to explore the area I highly suggest one of their tours. My parents took a BBQ tour with them a couple years ago and loved it. Safe Travels!

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