81

As it turns out, one of us miscounted, and our official winery total is only 81. We did nothing this weekend to add to that total, but we've sketched out our next few trips leading to #100. Definitely subject to change, but here goes.

The weekend of June 19, we plan to make a day trip and hit Woodland, which is outside of Richmond and by itself and Saude Creek (sp?), a brand new winery between Williamsburg and Richmond. We met the owner (and his neighbor) of Saude Creek at the Williamsburg wine festival this weekend. He seems like a nice guy, and his wines were impressive. Right now, he's located right outside of Williamsburg, but he's building a tasting room in New Kent. Anyway, that will get us up to 84.

The following weekend, we'll meet in NOVA and hit the following: Glen Manor, Chester gap, Rappahannock, Phillip Carter (Diane and I made an "unofficial" visit there this past winter), Linden, Hume, and Miracle Valley. That will get us up to 91.

Then, we're looking at a weekend in August when we'd go a little farther south and hit: Gadino, Gray Ghost, Normada, Martarella (anaother Diane and Eric recon), Meditteranean, Unicorn, and Molon Lava. That will get us up to 98.

AmRhein, which is in serious consideration for #100, may have to be preceded by one other stop on the way, so that it is in fact 100 and not 99. And since we'll be doing a bit of traveling to get to that part of the state, it won't surprise me if we hit a few past 100 too. Of course, as I said earlier, all this is subject to change, as we don't want to be too unspontaneous (real word??).

Williamsburg Wine Festival

The PoLo Wine Club met yesterday and spent the day at the Williamsburg Wine Festival. We were disappointed at first because we were not allowed to bring in our coolers, food, and chairs. This was the first festival that we've been to with these kind of restrictions.

However, after stewing for a while because we had to take the shuttle bus back to the car, drop off our stuff, and take the shuttle bus back to the festival, things got much better. It was an excellent festival -- not too crowded, a good variety of wineies, friendly people.

As I type, we're asking each other trivia questions about our experiences. We're also planning our next few trips leading up to 100. At this time, we're planning on going to AmRhein for our 100th. They're going to have a festival in October with wine stomping. We think that would be a good selection for this oh, so important event.