Decision Time

After careful consideration, we have chosen a winery for our one hundredth visit. Stay tuned for details . . .

#100 Candidates

On our recent family vacation, Diane and I took our boys (men?) to visit a handful of wineries on the way to and from NC. This was partly strategic, as we were checking out some potential candidates for our 100th winery visit. Yesterday, Diane sent out an e-mail to our 8 top choices. They are:

• Am Rhein (my first choice but farther off the beaten path)
• Gray Ghost (got an excellent e-mail reply)
• Rebec (love their wine, but the atmosphere is not exactly what we're looking for for this event)
• Potomac Point
• Del Fosse (beautiful location)
• Athena
• Prince Michel
• Unicorn

The most important factors in our decision (in no particular order) are:

• the wines
• the location: how far do we have to drive to get there
• the location: how nice of a place is it to spend a day there
• whether or not there are any events going on
• the response we get from our e-mail

What happened at Crooked Run

As I previously wrote, Crooked Run had been a favorite of ours. We learned about them the week after they opened, and made an unscheduled visit. It was such a great time. Although it was at the end of the day, the owners made us feel welcomed, and did not rush our visit. I had a glass of an excellent white wine (can't remember exact details), and I remember sitting and enjoying the end of the day.

Cut ahead to a few weeks ago. We were on one of our custom tours, about an hour away from Crooked Run. We knew Chatham Street was playing there, but we figured it was too far to drive after tasting all day. However, we decided to make the trip anyway. When we finally arrived, we were surprised to find almost no one there. We approached the girl at the bar to find out what was going on. She was less than friendly, and told us Chatham Street would probably not play. We joined them on a porch/balcony and had a nice reunion. Now, I don't know if the owners were just bummed that not very many guests had come, but the friendliness of our previous visit was no where to be seen. That was a disappointment.

We did enjoy Chatham Street's first set. There wasn't much of a crowd, which made it a little awkward between songs, but as usual, I loved listening to them. We decided to leave after that set because we hadn't had dinner. We were hoping that Crooked Run would be offering food, but since there wasn't anything available, we had to go find some place to fill our empty stomachs.

Crooked Run is still one of my favorite wineries in VA, but I wish they had been more inviting.