VA Wine Tours & Festivals

[RottingCorpse]

Saturday, July 11 - Gadino Cellars 4th Anniversary Celebration

Join us in celebrating our Fourth Anniversary as a commercial winery! As a thank you to our loyal customers, we are offering a special discount for all of our customers on select wines all day long! We'll have live music for your listening pleasure and light finger foods to pair with our wines.
Amenities: Child Friendly Pet Friendly.

Nacho come down with the NW and drink wine all day! Then Spoon me after as we watch Land of the Lost reruns.

[nacho]

Will do!  I'll clear the weekend with the wedding boss.

[RottingCorpse]

More on the July 11 winery . . .

http://www.gadinocellars.com/

[RottingCorpse]

Nacho keeps sending me sexy emails about VA wine country.

What we want to do is find the big festivals in which most of the state wineries are participating.

http://www.virginiawine.org/events/

See, While there are wineries that make some pretty good wine, some of the wineries aren't very good. Unlike Napa Valley, the wineries are spread out so you've got some long drives in between wineries. You don't want to waste drinking time driving out to a dud winery who's serving fruity vinegar.

If you're a real wine snob, you'll of course scoff at the idea of even sniffing VA wine, but it's not bad at all. The general consensus by people who know about such things is that VA wine is where California wine was about twenty to twenty-five years ago.

[nacho]

Do we not have a thread for this, RC?  I thought you started one.  Maybe my brain's damaged from watching Birds of Prey.

I ran across this today: http://www.welovedc.com/2010/04/20/getaways-vintage-ridge-vineyard/

And, of course, saw a zillion winery signs driving back from Elkins via I-66.

So now my interest is piqued.  But how does one do this, get tipsy, and travel home? I've never done a far-flung wine tour that involves heavy motoring.

[RottingCorpse]

But how does one do this, get tipsy, and travel home? I've never done a far-flung wine tour that involves heavy motoring.

You have a DD or get a hotel/B&B locally.

I think there's a wine tour thread in one of our travel threads.

[RottingCorpse]

Here's the wine tour thread.

[nacho]

Merged! 

Okay... Wine tours. Now that I've said it, I'll never do it.

Do you have any sort of pocket reviews from your last tour, RC?

[RottingCorpse]

The summer one often is less fun because of the heat. A wine buzz in 97 degree weather with ridiculous humidity isn't all that great. Plus, you have to keep cutting it with water so you don't have heat stroke. That said, if Mrs. RC and I have our schedules open, we try to go.

VA wine is quite good. The general consensus is that VA is about twenty years behind California on wine. However, twenty years ago, CA wine was incredible so I don't mind "slumming it." VA has a good variety of traditional wines and fruit wines, and even some crazy novelty wines you'd never buy, but will drink at a festival. (Hot pepper wine, anyone?)

There's a couple duds, but if you go with me I can steer you away from them. Though really, since it's a flat fee to taste everybody's wine, you might as well try the bad ones too. After all, one man's trash and all that jazz.

There are bands that are forgettable, and the food runs from stock carny to cheap snooty. Go for the wine, which is worth the trip.

[nacho]

I was thinking of targeting a few of the rural vineyards as a day away from the city sort of thing.  Besides that link I included in an earlier post, are the other vineyards open to that?  Or is it the storefront taste then get out of here routine you see in MD, PA, and WV wineries?  I was thinking back patio, bottle of wine, some cheeses, and maybe retire to a B&B.

[RottingCorpse]

Oh, they all do that. And in most aspects the better way to do it is just to drive from winery to winery. The problem becomes your level of drunkenness after, say, the second winery.

Mrs. RC and I did that for Valentine's Day this year. We went to high tea in The Plains, VA  then headed on over to Pearmund winery where we did a tasting and killed two glasses of wine before heading back to town for dinner.

The fall festival (September) is the better of the two big VA fests. It's lower key with less drunks and more wine lovers.

[RottingCorpse]

Mrs. RC and I are going to the Vintage Virginia Wine Festival on Saturday, June 5. $25 for the day, and it's only about twenty miles from our house. Who's in?

http://www.vintagevirginia.com/

[Cassander]

nacho, you should buy up vacant lots in silver spring and plant grape vines in them and create the first DC area urban winery. 

[nacho]

All the vacant lots now have high rise condos on them.

[Cassander]

rooftop vineyards!  eco-friendly and uber-hip!