Wine Tasting - Take 3 (Click on Pictures to view full size)
Wow! That's all I have to say! Well, I guess it's not - but "WOW" certainly describes the fun weekend Mike and I just had down in Virginia this past weekend. We both took the day off on Friday to head down early. We stopped at one of our favorite restaurants - Border Cafe - for lunch on Friday. Then we hit the road to check into our B&B - Killahevlin. If you're curious, we stayed in the Blue Room. It had a private enclosed porch with stunning views, a HUGE bathroom with a tub that could fit an army, and an electric fireplace (perfect for the 90+ degree weather). The B&B was fabulous. The breakfasts were awesome. The B&B also offered an Irish Pub to all of its guests. It was open to complimentary wine, beer, and soft drinks at any hour! We had fun visiting with the other guests around the pub in the evening!

After settling in on Friday night, we headed out to our favorite winery, Martarella. I became a member of their "case club" back in March. As a member of the case club, we get to visit the winery after they close to the public on Friday and Saturday nights from 6pm-9pm. They have a brick oven for making pizza on their patio. So, we headed out, enjoyed complimentary tastings (another club perk), enjoyed several glasses of wine, and a couple of pizzas while watching the sun set over the mountains! Everyone at the winery was very nice. The winemaker and owner, Kate, stopped by for a brief visit as well. I believe we're the only case club members from New Jersey!!! And, since we can't visit every weekend, we have to make the most of the visits we do have.


On Saturday morning, before taking the first bite of his breakfast, he exclaimed that he was already looking forward to Sunday morning's breakfast. On Saturday Tom and Kathy made us fresh-baked scones, banana strawberry fool (keep reading to learn about fool), pancakes, eggs, bacon, and sausage. A fruit fool is made with cooked or raw fruit that is puréed or mashed, then sweetened, chilled, and finally folded into stiffly beaten whipped cream (there should be streaks of the white cream showing where the fruit has not been completely folded into the whipped cream). Traditionally fools were made with tart fruits such as raspberries, gooseberries, blackberries, loganberries, and rhubarb but today virtually any fruit can be used. The pancakes had a touch of almond extract and some cornmeal making for a nutty, harty breakfast!!! After breakfast, we headed out to the wineries!

First stop was The Winery at La Grange. This was the first winery we had visited on our first stop back in October. The winery is just gorgeous - which is why I love to stop. And, it was on the way to the next wineries on the list. There was a wedding being held at the winery that day - the poor wedding party - it was SO HOT! We tasted 8 wines and picked up a couple of bottles!

Next on the list was Chrysalis. Norton is a grape that is widely grown in Virginia. I'm not a HUGE fan of Norton and Chrysalis specializes in this grape - I believe I remember they're the largest grower in the state, but I'd had a lot of wine so it's possible I'm remembering incorrectly. Oh gosh, I don't remember how many wines we tasted here. Mike liked more than I. I have it written down at home, but in the end, I tasted 50 wines on Saturday. Anwyay, back to the winery. Chrysalis is expanding. They're planning a new tasting room, a 3-star restaurant, and some other improvements. It's located down a single-lane dirt road. They were hit really hard with a storm last Wednesday and still didn't have phone service!!! My least favorite part - the tastings were held outside!!! ACK!!! But, they did have a neat patio with a grill where you could come and cook your own food and enjoy wine - that was the original plan.

Next stop - Swedenburg Estate Vineyard. This was a smaller winery - much more intimate than the last stop. We tasted just a handful of wines, but chose to take a break. Mike had a soda, I had a glass of wine. We both enjoyed some cheese and a fresh-baked baguette. We weren't really hungry, but decided it wouldn't be a bad idea to take a break after our third stop. It turned out to be lunch!

After recovering, we hopped back in the car and drove off to Piedmont. They were the oldest winery in Virigina - they opened in 1973. That shows you just how new the wine industry is in Virginia! They've come a long way.

My favorite winery of the day was our next stop, Vintage Ridge Vineyards. Vintage Ridge offers a more unique tasting experience. Normally, you just walk up to the tasting bar and taste wines. Every now and then, the winery will give you chocolate or cheese or olives to see how the wine compliments various foods. Well, Vintage Ridge takes that to a whole new level! First, you sit at tables for the tasting and they bring the wine out to you. For $8, we tasted 5 wines (a small number compared to a lot of other wineries). But, we didn't just get wine. Check out what's sitting in front of Mike at the table - a whole platter of foods! They brought out blue cheese, olives, a fig wrapped in bacon, mozarella with pesto, cheddar cheese, crackers, turkey, roast beef with horseradish, mushrooms, and four types of chutneys. I think I remembered it all. Then, for the dessert wine, they brought out goat cheese with honey, brie on a granny smith apple, shortbread with some sort of fruity topping, blue cheese, and a strawberry tart! It was so fun to taste the wines and experiment with the foods in front of us! It was such a relaxing experience - and we will be visiting again!!!

Finally, our last stop of the day was Virginia's newest winery - Barrel Oak. They just opened this past Memorial Day Weekend. And their facilities are GORGEOUS, the view is breathtaking, and their wine selection is impressive! They're certainly off to a good start! I was pretty "happy" by the time we arrived here. I hardly even noticed the fact that their air conditioning wasn't yet working as the basement was still under construction! We tasted a nice selection of wines, but my favorite and the one that sticks out most was a wine called Chocolate Lab. I bought a bottle. It's a dessert wine that is FABULOUS and if I heard correctly, they actually added a touch of chocolate to the wine.

After a full day of tasting, Mike drove us safely back to the B&B where I managed to collapse. We then had an entertaining dinner at Applebees several hours later. I say it was entertaining because when we arrived, the fire alarm was going off and the fire department arrived, but we had a nice dinner!!!

Breakfast on Sunday was the B&B's specialty - Eggs Benedict. But they serve theirs over a waffle. Interesting, tasty, and delicions but I think I prefer the classic style. I'm a huge fan of eggs benedict. Mike had never had it before and really liked it. All of this wine-tasting and eggs benedict is really making me want to go back to Sonoma, CA. I had the best eggs benedict at the Lodge at Sonoma a few years ago...anyway...back to this weekend....

We thought about going wine tasting on Sunday. We even ventured out to a free tasting at a local winery, but they hadn't even opened. SO, we said enough with the wine, and headed for Baltimore! We stopped in Inner Harbour and visited the Aquarium. It was nice and refreshing. Mike loved taking pictures of the fish! After our Aquarium tour, we enjoyed dinner at the Cheesecake Factory - there wasn't a line if you were willing to eat outside. So, we opted for outside. We had a front row seat of the Inner Harbour. And, when you're sitting still, it wasn't unbearable! After dinner we walked back to the parking garage to get our car - the final adventure of the weekend was getting our car out. Apparently the parking garage lost power! It's awfully dark when there is no power in the garage! Luckily there were a few emergency lights. Then we didn't have enough cash to get out, but they gladly accepted all of the money we had - $17!!

Oh - I forgot to mention that toughest part - keeping all of that wine cool. I now have a VERY nice selection of coolers! We bought 3 large coolers and a bag of ice and the wine stayed nice and comfortable on the ride home.