Virginia Wine Showcase - Part 2

I know you all were expecting a highly detailed account of last weekend’s Virginia Showcase with tasting notes, etc., etc., so please accept my most humble apology for just now getting around to it. It’s been a rather busy week and several of my first drafts were just not up to RWR quality.

So with the limited time factor, I figure I just would like to give my overall impressions and account of a few highlights and then do detailed tasting notes in subsequent posts when I start to feature individual wineries. (WineStyles will be featuring a different VA winery every month from now on and we’re also looking to start a Virginia-specific wine blog where users can post pictures and reviews, etc.)

Anyways, it was a great mix of wine, food, crafts and fun. The usual suspects of the likes of Chrysalis, Breaux, Lake Anna and Horton were there in full regalia, but we also found a few new ones that we were not familiar with such as North Mountain and Miracle Valley. In addition, I was very impressed to see a lot of wineries turning out good reds made with Merlot, Cabernet and Tannat as well as some spectacular whites with lots of structure and complexity. And of course there were also plenty of Concord grape and fruit wines, which are not my cup of tea, but good and fun nonetheless. (Note to the wise, if you’re up for tasting a lot of these Super-sweet wines in a festival-type setting, save them for the end because all of that sugary, fruity sweetness can ruin your palate and/or turn your stomach upside down very quickly.)

Overall, the wines were solid with only a very few questionable ones, but you always have to expect a few of those. Virginia wines have come along way, but they still have a ways to go. However, I have a lot of confidence in the current mix of wine makers and grape growers as they are not afraid to buck tradition and try new things. As we all know Virgina is quite different from the Terrior of Sonoma or Tuscany,but that doesn’t mean that it can’t produce great wine. This leaves me very excited for the future and for the next Virginia Wine festival. in September.