Virginia Wines - June 2012 Tasting Notes

Virginia Wines

Why Virginia wines?  Well, why not?  They are close but man are they expensive!  We tried wines from all over and many different varietals.  We did like one enough to decide to explore that grape this fall, but I am getting ahead of myself.

Here is a sparkling wine from Barboursville Vineyards.  They say they are in Charlottesville, but they aren't.  I know this because there isn't enough open land in C'ville to grow enough grapes on to make all the wine they produce.  They are near C'ville though and they are on an historic estate that was designed by Mr. Jefferson, so they get a little credit on that.  As sparklings go, this was a decent brut.  Costs $16.90 at your local VA ABC store.

This was a leftover bottle from a visit to Unicorn Winery.  Unicorn Winery is in Amissville, Virginia (around Warrenton).  There was something "amiss" with this bottle.  This is from the traminette grape which is a cross  between Gewurztraminer and Joannes Seyve and is a new, new varietal.  It was crossed and officially named in 1965 at the University of Illinois.  This tasted nothing like gewurtz but it was really golden in color.  Sorry to say we poured it out.  On the up side, it was a free bottle.

Back to Barboursville.  Octagon is an award winning red.  It is supposed to be big and yummy and bold.  Maybe we got a bad bottle or maybe 2007 wasn't a good year.  Even those in the group who love big reds didn't like this.  Another one down the drain.  @$36.99 from Total Wine, it hurt to pour it out.

I picked up this lovely bottle because it has Mr. Jefferson's signature on it.  I am a little attached to C'ville and Mr. Jefferson, but I digress.  This is a "Reserve Chardonnay" and we had reasonable expectations for it. At $21.99, I was hoping it would be really enjoyed by the Chard lovers in our group.  Hurt to pour this out, but I kept the bottle, cause, well, he signed it!

Veritas Vineyards wins the design competition.  We all thought this was a nice label.  This winery is located in Afton, Virginia (another one outside C'ville - told you I had a problem).  The wine is Viogner from the viogner grape.  This was surprisingly good.  Most of the group liked it (not loved, but it was drinkable).  It smelled sweeter than it tasted and was a bigger body that expected.  This one comes in at $17.99 a bottle at Total Wine.

Chrysalis Vineyards was our winner for the night!  Chrysalis is located in lovely Middleburg, Virginia.  We tried their Norton which is, for the uninitiated, the only REAL American grape. The Norton grape is native to Virginia and was pretty darn good.  Good enough that we are going to do a Norton tasting this fall.  Too bad, this, like all the Virginia wines, is just too expensive to be an every day, always on hand, drinking wine.  This one set us back $17.99 but was the only bottle we really wished we had bought another bottle of.