Virginia Wine Getaways

Virginia has a bunch of promotions this year to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the "Virginia is for Lovers" campaign. One of the coolest is a series of wine getaways. The label them 48 Hour Guilt Free Getaways, but that is way too much to type :).

Now that the harvest is here, its the perfect time to visit Virginia wineries and making a weekend of it is a lot of fun. They even have something nice for my neck of the woods, Loudoun County. My personal favorite is the Mountain Majesty Getaway. In addition to harvest, this is when the leaves change and it is the perfect time for a drive through the mountains.

The Post Remembers Virginia has Wineries

The Post ran their bi-annual 'Virginia has wineries' article this morning. Completely not ironically (I assume) they also ran an article about how Virginia wineries get no respect in their own backyard.

I will give the first article some credit in that they picked 4 interesting wineries from different parts of Loudoun to highlight: Bluemont, Chrysalis, Sunset Hills and Notaviva.

Despite living so close to it, I had never visited Chrysalis. Part of the reason for that is their affinity for the Norton grape, but more than that it just hadn't been on my radar. Well, I finally corrected that a few weeks ago.

Their setup is a little unusual for a Virginia winery: The tastings are actually held in a large building that is separate from their "tasting room". The tasting room is very small, so this arrangement makes sense. They have three tables set up in the building where they do the tastings and they run group tastings at set times during the hour. So, you get your tasting ticket, go the table where the next tasting is going to start and wait until the appointed time.

Their wines make heavy use of Norton, so if you love that grape you need to visit this winery. In my case, I was impressed with their Petit Verdot and their Tannat, both grapes that are not seen often in Virginia and both excellently done.

I also enjoyed Sarah's Patio White and Red, excellent summer wines.