Our First Trip

Our first trip, which we called The Long and Winery Road (later renamed The Long and Winery Road II) began just north of I-64 in Louisa County. The girls had tasted Cooper's Sweet Louisa and were dying to visit the winery where it was produced. But on the way, we passed a sign fro Grey Haven. (This was before we discovered the Virginia Winery Guide map, our bible now.)

At Grey Haven, we learned about the Heart of VA wine trail. For a small fee, you visited the five wineries on the trail, they stamped your card, and at the end you got something, which I can't remember now. So, on that day, we visited Grey Haven (where the server was an entertaining South African) and Cooper (where they had food and music set up outside), saw the sign for Bumpass, VA (had to take a picture), fought the crowds at Lake Anna, and ended up at the mecca of our pilgrimage: Horton.

At that time our palates were pretty unsophisticated, and we mostly enjoyed sweeter, fruitier wines. We went to Horton for the peach and pear and raspberry and plum wines. But we discovered, they had a wide array and a huge selection of wines. (To this day, a tasting at Horton will get you the best bang for your buck, as they have a couple of dozen wines and charge nothing.) I think that was when Mike and I started showing a little interest in drier, red wines.

We left for dinner, then the hotel. I happened to mention in passing a restaurant just south of Harrisonburg that had a pretty mediocre buffet, but included delicious slices of almost every pie imaginable. Despite the 60-something-mile detour over the winding, mountainous roads of rt. 33, we headed for Mrs. Rowe's Country Buffet. (And yes, I called ahead and asked if they were a buffet.) We all did our best to neglect the entrees and vegetables as much as possible, but only Mike skipped the dinner foods completely and focused on the pies. I think he had 8 slices. BTW, my favorite of theirs is the French Apple (or am I supposed to say Freedom Apple?).

Full, slightly hung over, and tired, we headed back to our hotel to get a good night's sleep and get ready for day 2.