Our plan was to reach #170 this weekend. As John Lennon (and I'm sure countless others) said, "Life is what happens when you're making other plans." We had to be satisfied with five wineries in two days, as unexpected circumstances got in the way.
We met at Diane's and my hotel in Waynesboro early Saturday morning. We had two appointments, one at 10:00 and the other at 11:00. This was the first time we began a tour with back-to-back by-appointment visits. Another first was that the owner of the second winery was meeting us at the first winery. As you'll see, it was a weekend of many firsts. We arrived at Jump Mountain Vineyard a little early. We were greeted by the owners, Mary and David. A short while later Janet and Calvin from Lexington Valley Vineyard arrived with their son, daughter, and some other dude (someone who worked at their winery, I believe).
Jump Mountain is a new winery. In fact, we were the first visitors to do a tasting in this space. They only had one varietal/vintage bottled, so they also poured several white wines from Reynard Florence, which is located in Burnley, near Barboursville. As an aside, we discovered Reynard Florence about a year ago when another winery was closed and we needed to find a place to round out our numbers. We fell in love with this small, but special place. The last time we visited them, which was just a few weeks ago, they included in their tasting a wine from a "new winery over the mountain". Suddenly, it clicked. As Jump Mountain was pouring Reynard Florence, we remembered that it was Jump Mountain that was that "new winery over the mountain". We really liked it then, and we really liked it on this visit. It was a 2011 Cab Sauv, quite nice. David also brought some samplings from his barrels of 2012 Cab Sauv, a Cab Sauv/Tannat blend, and a Petit Verdot (I think).
After the tasting, they gave us a tour of the winery. Even though both Mary and David work at UVA (we're VA Tech fans), they've got the beginnings of something special in the valley. I was particularly impressed with their interaction with Calvin and Janet. I love the collaborative nature of the VA wine industry. Even though they are competitors of sorts, they support each other in all kinds of ways.
Our next first was that we received the winery equivalent of a police escort from Jump Mountain to Lexington Valley. The difference was that instead of a police car it was Calvin and Janet. Like Mary and David, Calvin and Janet were not native to this area and worked in higher education. Their specialty is hybrid grapes. As Calvin explained, except for the Norton, all their grapes are hybrids. We tasted a Marechal Foch, which was a new grade for us. My personal favorite was their 2010 Traminette. (And, I learned that Traminette was a play on words, short for Gewurztraminer. We're always learning new things on our travels.) Calvin was full of all sorts of facts and figures.
I hate to short change our next two visits, and hopefully, I'll come back and work on this some more later. We visited Blue Ridge Vineyard and Virginia Mountain Vineyards after lunch. We had very nice experiences with the women who co-owned these wineries with their husbands. We ate dinner at Beamer25, a VA Tech themed restaurant in Roanoke. I had one of the best burgers I've ever had. After some frozen yogurt at the local Sweet Frog, we were all bushed. Mike and I worked on our notes a little while, but it was time to get some sleep.
We had hoped to make it to two or possibly three wineries on Sunday. Our first stop was Am Rhein, an old favorite of Diane's and mine but one to which Mike and Deb had never been. First, we had our traditional power breakfast sandwiches at Panera Bread. While sipping our coffee, Diane got a call from our older son. This is neither the time nor place to get into personal details, but something came up which delayed our departure by about an hour. Everything is okay, but we were all a little shaken. In fact the weekend had already been colored by two events in Mike and Deb's life. Their oldest son was visiting Russia and preparing to leave for Germany. Their younger son was beginning basic training, and they were waiting to hear from him for the last time in eight weeks. Despite the tenuous nature of the events in our lives, we soldiered on to Am Rhein.
Years ago, when Star Wars came out, I heard so many people raving about it that I was disappointed when I finally saw it. I don't know if that analogy holds true, but I could tell that Am Rhein did not live up to Mike's and Deb's expectations. I'm not sure how much of it was unrealistic expectations, the inattentive pourer, the changes of our wine preferences, or just a bad year for Am Rhein, but they did not seem impressed. I still stand by my opinion that Am Rhein is one of the best in the state, and Mike did agree to give them a second visit.
We had brought sandwiches, planning to stay their, buy some wine, and picnic. We thought it might be best to picnic somewhere else. Both couples had to be somewhere before 6:00, so we decided to revisit another favorite, which was more or less on the way back to the hotel. We went to Valhalla Vineyard a year ago to the day with our son Nathan, after moving him into his apartment in Roanoke. He was getting ready to begin his first teaching job, and we all celebrated with a superior tasting and a magnificent view.
On this visit, we arrived at Valhalla a few minutes before they opened, but our wait was short. Here's another first. We didn't do a tasting. Mike looked at his notes, found the wine that we liked the best, and we bought a bottle to share while we ate. We tried supping outdoors, not wanting glass between us and the beautiful view. By the time we sat down, the clouds had moved and exposed the sun and its evil rays. We moved our party inside and enjoyed the wine, the food, and the air conditioning.
Our next stop was our hotel in Waynesboro, where Mike and Deb had left their car. Traffic was horrendous, and 90-minute drive turned into a 2+ hour drive with several detours (of our design) off the interstate. It's always sad when we have to part, but it's better to end the weekend to soon and wish for more than to be on the road too long. They headed for Northern VA to visit with friends, and we headed to Richmond, where Diane will be staying a few days for training for a new job. We're hoping to do our next tour in early November. In the meantime, we'll have to settle for what's in our over-stuffed wine rack and some wonderful memories.
