It's that time of year. Thanksgiving dinner shopping and choosing wines to serve with it. There's lots of advice out there this week on-line so thought I'd share my pairing guidance. Whether you chose red or white wine, I recommend serving both, the general advice is pair simple wines (lighter and less complex) with complex [...]
My goal at Sunday's 36th Annual Virginia Wine Festival was two part...1) Buy a few great examples of Virginia wine for my upcoming girls' weekend, and 2) Discover a few new Virginia wineries I haven't tried. Success on both fronts!! The two-day event held in Centreville, Virginia (about 30 miles west of Washington, DC) brought together 40+ [...]
Virginia, the fifth largest wine producing state in the U.S., now has over 193 wineries in production and 22 wine trails to explore. And what better place to start your tour than where it all began? In 1807 Thomas Jefferson, often called America's first wine connoisseur, planted grapes at Monticello imagining his home state would [...]
Virginia now has an official state wine grape... Viognier! The Virginia Wine Board recently voted it so. Viognier, a grape and wine variety that originates in the French region of Condrieu in Northern Rhône, grows very well in Virginia's climate and soil. Typically a dry or slightly off dry white wine with a lovely bouquet [...]
This weekend George Washington's home in Alexandria, Virginia hosted the Mount Vernon Spring Wine Festival & Sunset Tour. You can enjoy candlelit tours of the Mansion including a peek into the rarely seen cellar where Washington stored his wine, live jazz music and the main feature of the evening... samplings from Virginia wineries. Under the [...]