2008 Virginia Wine Festival

This past weekend we visited the Virginia Wine Festival after a one-year hiatus (not our desire, that's just the way it worked out last year). This year's festival switched venues to the Prince William County Fairgrounds from its former home in the Plains, Virginia. The change is distinct. Instead of rolling hills amidst rural beauty, the festival is on a grotty fairground lot near Manassas's old town. The good innovation was the advent of larger tents to provide shelter from the rain. We visited some old favorites (Keswick Vineyards, Chrysalis Vineyards, and of course Barboursville) and discovered a couple of new ones (West Wind Vineyards).

Keswick only brought a few of their wines, but we were impressed by the 2007 Touriga and the 2007 Les Vents d'Anges Viognier. Virginia produces some excellent white wines -- West Wind's Pinot Gris really shone, as did many of Barboursville's chardonnays. Cardinal Point makes a really good, dry Riesling, but also does wonderful Cabernet Franc, probably one of the most successful of the red grape varietals in Virginia's soils. We of course came across some nasty wine, many with weird smells, but overall the quality is improving. Barboursville continues, however, to blow the competition away with consistent wines on both the red and white ends of the spectrum (the brut, for example, is delectable). The Italian sensibilities have drawn wonderful flavors out of cabernet sauvignon, nebbiolo, cabernet franc and even sangiovese.

Kluge is an inconsistent vineyard (the blanc de blanc is too sweet and the Cru -- a fortified chardonnay aged for a time in Jack Daniels barrels -- is just bizarre), but their Abermale Rose continues to impress. At $6 a bottle it's also a steal!

We were disappointed to see that Veritas decided to skip the wine festival again this year. We've finished all the wine we bought from them in 2004 during our trip to Charlottesville. Perhaps a return trip is required. That would give us an opportunity to patronise Jefferson Vineyards as well, which has done wonders with Gewurztraminer, among other white varietals.

Overall, it was a successful day (despite the traffic jam on the Beltway coming home). We even discovered great peanut and pistachio brittle made by Red Rocker Candy!