Winemaker Accidentally Discovers Stewie Griffin’s Head is Football Shaped to Prevent Him From Falling Into Barrels

Some wineries are like the show “The Family Guy”: you never know if you’re in for 30 minutes of awesome or 30 minutes of awkward gags that don’t quite land. A winery with which we’ve had this sort of relationship is Potomac Point Vineyard and Winery. We’re adventurous, so we rolled up to see what was shaking this time around.

As always, the tasting room was busy, but this time around the service was pretty good. It wasn’t long before we got our first pour: the 2010 La Belle Vie Rose ($16.99). This rose is a blend of 80% Syrah and 20% Chambourcin with 1% residual sugar. I found the nose to be funky and fruity, and it was generally a basic deck-type wine. The 2011 Chardonnay ($15.99) was described to us as a stainless steel chard with 15% of Viognier blended in. For a stainless wine, I was getting a bit of butter and vanilla on the nose, along with a fuller mouthfeel. It wasn’t bad, but it certainly didn’t have the crispness that I look for in a stainless chard.

We were then poured an off-list wine, a 2009 Chardonnay Reserve (no price given). It was buttery and oaky and generic. The 2010 Chardonnay Reserve ($21.99) was better, more interesting with some green olive notes. The chards were followed by the 2010 Viognier Reserve ($24.99), a stainless steel viggy with 10% 0f chardonnay blended in. The tasting notes indicated banana accents and they weren’t kidding. It came through strongly on the nose and palate, sort of like the banana Now & Laters you keep letting slide to the bottom of the candy bowl. There were other tropical fruits in there, but… nanners. For sure.

We headed for the sweeter side, beginning with the Custom Label White Sweet ($13.99), a blend of Sauvignon Blanc, Vidal Blanc, and Petit Manseng at 2% residual sugar. It had that sweet/floral vidal nose and was sweet and flat on the palate. Meh. The 2010 La Belle Vie White ($12.99) was more enjoyable for me. This blend of Vidal Blanc, Viognier, Chardonnay, and Petit Manseng (1.5% residual sugar) showed lime and citrus without cloying sweetness. To the reds!

The first red we tried was the 2010 Abbinato ($16.99), a 50-50 blend of Sangiovese and Touriga Nacional. This is a wine that typifies my relationship with Potomac Point. I did not like the 2008 vintage of this wine. Here’s how I reacted to the 2009 vintage: ” I loved this wine to a bizarre degree. I didn’t just want to bring a bottle home, I wanted to adopt it, send it to college, and buy it a house.” Seriously, we were digging it. The 2010? Not so much. It had a nice nose but it was thin and watery and… not special.

We were next poured the 2009 Cabernet Franc ($22.99). It was a very plain Jane cab franc, and for some odd reason they served a chocolate with it. I often disagree with the “here have a chocolate with this wine cuz it’s red,” but it REALLY did nothing for the wine (and vice versa). Plus, we were nowhere near done, so I was desperately scrubbing the chocolate from my palate so I could taste the Custom Label Red ($20.99). This was a blend of Merlot, Cabernet Franc, and Cabernet Sauvignon. There was a less than enjoyable funk on the nose and the palate had the merest flash of berry and.. nothing.

Potomac Point then flirted with a lawsuit from the Meritage Alliance with their 2009 Heritage ($26.99), a Bordeaux style blend of Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon, and Petit Verdot. It was surprisingly light for a not-a-Meritage, with indistinct fruit and not much happening, The reds wrapped up with the 2009 Petit Verdot ($24.99). The nose was full of rich, dark fruit that just didn’t seem to translate to the palate.

We finished the tasting with two sweeter wines. The first was the 2010 Vin de Paille ($26.99 for a 375mL), a rich dessert wine made from 65% Late Harvest Vidal Blanc, 30% Late Harvest Petit Manseng, and 5% Muscat Raisin with 16.8% alcohol and 12.5% residual sugar. I enjoyed this one. Imagine multiplying the honeyed richness of a “regular” late harvest wine by the number of bad movies Nicholas Cage has made. Mmmm.

The final wine was the 2010 Rabelos Port ($39.99 for a 750 mL), 50% Touriga/ 30% Chambourcin/ 20% Tinto Cao aged in bourbon barrels for 17.5% alcohol and 9% residual sugar. On the palate, I got the smoky wood of the barrel, then the rich dark fruit, then the booze. It wasn’t harsh, but it wasn’t as integrated as I might have hoped for.

Potomac Point has a pretty space, and when the wines are on point (see what I did there?) they can be quite good. My quibble is just that they’re not really consistent.

 

Said the Winemaker to the Velociraptor, This Here’s Mah Chewin’ Stick

First Colony Winery, near Charlottesville, was one of the wineries we visited in the heady early days of this blog. For whatever reason, we haven’t made it back to visit them or their neighbor, Michael Shaps, since that weekend. I blame the fact that while they’re certainly not far from other wineries, we just never seem to actually drive by. Okay, excuse is locked and loaded. Good to go.

Sensing a wrong that needed righting, we got all heroic avengers on ourselves and steered the Winery Assault Vehicle down the winding gravel track to the winery. A right  turn at the split took us to the parking lot of First Colony and a profusion of happy spring flowers and trees. Bob Ross would be proud.

Inside, nothing has changed from our last visit. We eased on over to a vacant corner of the bar and waited our turn. The first wine poured was the 2010 Seyval Blanc ($16). There was a lot of tropical fruit action happening on the nose and palate, and the fruit made this wine (billed as a dry wine, so we’ll trust them) taste sweeter than it was. The 2009 Chardonnay Reserve ($18) wasn’t a winner for me. The oak wasn’t doing nice things, and neither was the unbalanced acid I got on the finish. The 2010 Rose ($14) is a 50-50 cab franc and petit verdot blend. I like a rose to be light and refreshing; this one was like smoky, flat watermelon juice for me.

Next up was the 2010 Cabernet Franc ($20). There was fruit and a little earthy funk on the nose, round red fruit on the palate, with the expected cherry and black pepper. It’s a solid if unexciting cab franc.

We then took a sweeter turn, starting with the 2010 Zephyr ($20 on sale for $15), a blend of Petit Manseng and Vidal Blanc with 1.3% residual sugar. I don’t know the percentages but I’m guessing the vidal makes up the majority of the wine (correct me if I’m wrong). I say this because it tasted, to me, like a sweet vidal with an unusually strong (in a good way) acid backbone. I’d pass at the list price, but at fifteen? Campfire. Totally. Just throw a tarp over me before you go inside in case it rains.

The non-vintage Sweet Shanando ($15) was next, a 4% residual sugar Vidal Blanc. You see 4% RS on a vidal and you worry that you’ll react the way you did when your brother dared you to take a shot of Karo corn syrup, right? Not with this. I was stunned – somehow this wine seemed thin and almost watery. I was very confused. My notes actually said “cray-cray.”

They also do a sweet Chambourcin blend called the Claret ($15 and non-vintage). Seriously, a restaurant should so just put a sweet Chambourcin called Claret on the wine list as Claret. That would be hilarious. This wine is listed at 3% residual sugar. I got a heady nose of caramelized sugar on the nose, and it tasted like chewing on a stick. We finished with the 2007 “1607” Red Dessert Wine ($25), a Ruby Port-style wine rocking 6% residual sugar. It definitely smelled like Port, and was a little rough but definitely redolent with rich, dried fruit flavors. It was ok for me but I wouldn’t seek it out.

Since I wrote the post about our last visit here, it’s interesting to see how my palate and tasted have evolved over several years of drinking Virginia wines. I also saw that there were many more dry wines last time, whereas this trip they seemed a fruit wine shy of a wine festival. I have no idea if this reflects the direction the winery is going, because our pourer kinda sucked. She spent most of her time flirting with the middle-aged guys at the other end of the bar and ignoring us, often walking over, pouring our tasting, and walking back without even saying what it was. If pourers got tipped, I could understand it. When I was bartending, I would have flirted with a velociraptor if I thought a tip might be forthcoming. In this case, it was just frustrating  and off-putting. I guess if we want the full story of what First Colony is doing, we’ll need to get back more often.

 

 

 

Giant Mutant Bishop Terrorizes Countryside

On yet another bizarrely warm winter day in Virginia, we pulled the Winery Assault Vehicle down the long driveway to Old House Vineyards. Can you believe it’s been almost a whole year since the last time we tasted here? Since the last trip, the chess set apparently ate really, really well and got bigger. That’s kind of cool.

We walked up to the bar and settled in for a tasting. First up was the latest version of the Petillante ($35), a sparkling wine made from Chardonnay. There was apple on the nose,but it wasn’t really working for me on the palate. It’s a bummer because I really dug the prior version. Next was the Clover Hill ($14.99), a dry Vidal Blanc. The notes  from the winery say it’s reminiscient of Pinot Grigio. I guess  I could see that, as it’s light and fruity with a little bit of lemon. From there we took a splash of Chardonnay ($16.99). There was fruit at the front of palate and oak and butter on the finish. For new readers, this isn’t my preferred style of chard.

We then turned a little sweeter with the Vidal Blanc ($13.99), a Vidal with 1.8% residual sugar. Lightly sweet and generically fruity, it’s a campfire wine. Rosie’s Rose ($14.99) is a Cabernet Franc-based rose that’s done off-dry. It’s slightly sweet with a fruitiness that I struggled to quantify. Then it hit me: crunchberries!

The reds started with the Cabernet Franc ($16.99), which had loads of cherry on the nose and was rather light on the palate. The Wicked Bottom ($17.99) followed, a Chambourcin Reserve (hear that? that was the sound of vinifera snobs sucking in a breath at once). The nose was red fruit and smokiness, and the palate showed lots of puckery tart fruit that one might expect from a Chambourcin. The reds concluded with the Bacchanalia ($21), a blend of Cabernet Franc, Tannat, Petit Verdot, and Chambourcin. It’s like a Meritage blend from an alternate universe (there’s that sound again. Stop it, vinifera snobs). It’s layered but not as rich and sexy as I was hoping for.

From the reds we moved to the sweet wines, beginning with the Arctica ($22.99 for a 375 mL). This is a Vidal Blanc wine made in the ice wine style. I got loads of apricot and dried peach in a smooth, sweet wine. We concluded the tasting with the Chambourcin Dessert Wine ($25 for a 500mL), a fortified Port-style wine made from – well, duh. It’s in the name. The nose carried dried fruit and brandy up my sinuses. On the palate I tasted dark fruit and a little harshness that was smoothed out by the chocolate they gave us. It wouldn’t be a great aperitif, but I could dig it with something like a flourless chocolate cake.

The wines here are… really just ok. That pains me, because (as mentioned before) we really like Old House. It’s a gorgeous winery that keeps getting better looking each year and the folks behind the tasting bar are consistently friendly and fun. But you have to keep it real, right?

 

VDOT and VABC at Odds Over Tasting Room on Freeway Off-Ramp

After a less than awesome tasting experience, we allowed a long stretch of time to elapse before our return to Prince Michel Winery. We finally decided that ok, it was time. With trepidation in our hearts and gravel in our pockets (it’s a good luck charm in my grandma’s home village), we pulled up the long hill and docked the Winery Assault Vehicle in a white, stripey berth.

The initial impression is still the same: this is like a gorgeous rest stop on the New Jersey Turnpike, except missing the Cinnabon. It’s attractive and well appointed, but… big. Very big. That, and the gift shop is jam packed with lots of stuff. Look, I’m all for diversified revenue streams and knowing your buyers, but I’m going to have trouble taking you seriously as a winery if you’re featuring a product I can only describe as Truck Nutz for golfers. No really, these were ACTUALLY displayed – prominently – in multiple locations around the room. At age *coughcoughcough* I still find Spencer’s Gifts at the mall to be hilarious, and even I was put off.

Having negotiated the lobby of the Flying J Travel Center and Gift Shop of wine, we staked out a spot at the tasting bar. Here’s how the tasting works: there are fifteen dry wines and eleven sweet ones. For five bucks you can do all the sweet, all the dry, or a combination thereof not to exceed fifteen wines. It’s potentially confusing, but we ciphered it out and opted to each eliminate one dry wine in favor of a sweet. Too much braining, let’s drink!

We kicked off the tasting with the Prince Michel Sparkling Wine ($39.99), a dry sparkler made from Chardonnay and a bit of Pinot Noir by the ever awesome Claude Thibault. It was bright and apple-y with some spice on the back of the palate. Nice! This was followed by the Prince Michel Pinot Grigio 2010 ($18.99). I got almost as much lime on the nose and palate as I do on a NY Riesling. It was strange. Tasty, but confusing.

Next was the first of Prince Michel’s vineyard designate wines, the Mt. Juliet Petit Manseng 2008 ($29.99). The acid and the fruit and the sweetness were all perfectly in harmony for a glass full of awesomeness. VA Wine Diva has been wanting me to try this for a while, and when she asked me if I liked it I said “it is really well done, but I don’t know if I like it thirty bucks worth.” To which she replied, “are you just saying that because we’re at Prince Michel? Would you say the same thing tasting the exact same wine at, say, Tarara?” She had a point. Jerk. So I would pay thirty bucks for it because it really is that good.

The Petit Manseng a fading memory, we got a splash of the Prince Michel Viognier 2006 ($14.99). I got melon and creamy oak notes in a wine that was just okay for me. Next was the Prince Michel Chardonnay 2008 ($14.99), which I opted to swap for a sweet wine later in the tasting. My partner will fill you in. My next wine then was the Prince Michel Barrel Select Chardonnay 2008 ($18.99). The operative word here is “barrel”. Imagine whipping up cream, butter, and vanilla in a blender. I know some people like this sort of thing; they need not worry about me hoarding this wine on them.

To the reds! The vinos tintos kicked off with the Prince Michel Dry Rose 2006 ($14.99), totally dry and made from 100% Merlot. Maybe it’s the age, but it felt like it was missing that big fruity character that I love with a dry rose. From here we moved to the Prince Michel Cabernet Franc 2008 ($14.99), a pretty basic cab franc that had the requisite cherry and felt a tad syrupy and medicinal with some green herbal notes. The next wine, the Mountain View Cabernet Franc 2005 ($29.99) is another vineyard designate, and it clearly spends time cuddling with wood. The dominant notes were rosemary and cedar, and the fruit was way in the back.

For some reason we didn't take many pics. So to break up the text, here's Simon Pegg in Russia

The Prince Michel Merlot ($14.99) included 8% Shiraz and is labeled as American, meaning it’s less than 75% Virginia fruit. It’s not a bad wine, with a lot of raspberry and herb. The green herbage has been a consistent thread across the reds thus far, which is unexpected. I liked the Merlot better than the vineyard designate Mt. Juliet Petit Verdot 2007 (29.99), which was again REALLY green on the nose and palate and didn’t have the heft I’ve come to like from a petit verdot.

The Prince Michel Cabernet Sauvignon ($14.99) was what I think of when I think about a “meh” cab sauv. It was green and thin and kind of boring. The vineyard designate cab sauv that followed, the Crown Orchard Cabernet Sauvignon 2008 (29.99) was a huge step forward. There was still some green on the nose, but the fruit was rich and dark with cedar and spice.

Having discovered the awesomeness that is Syrah, I was excited by the next vineyard designate, the Quaker Run Syrah 2008 ($29.99). This vineyard is near Graves Mountain, and the wine offered up tons of floral lavender on the nose and palate layered with the fruit and a little mint. My hyperactive imagination pictured bees, drunk on nectar from the lavender farm in Madison County and coated in pollen, flying over and injecting some flavor into the grapes at Quaker Run. There is probably no link whatsoever, but that’s never stopped my imagination.

The last wine was the Prince Michel Symbius 2008 ($29.99), a Meritage-style blend of the Bordeaux varietals. It was fruity with no structure, finish, or anything interesting. Sorry. We then moved on to the sweet, as we had craftily eliminated one dry wine in order to get a taste of one wine from the sweet list. VA Wine Diva will tell you about the Prince Michel Tres Bien 2006 ($21.99 for a 375 mL), which was her pick. I opted for the Prince Michel Port Style Dessert Wine ($49.99 for a 750 mL, $39.99 for a 500 mL, and $24.99 for a 375 mL).  This is a blend of 85% zinfandel and 15% Merlot and rocks out the 8% residual sugar at 18.5% alcohol. Last time out, my partner compared it to Robitussin. I’m happy to report that it is no longer that bad. However, I found it cloyingly sweet and a little harsh, so I don’t love it.

So what else is on the sweet list that we didn’t taste? Here’s a list:

• Rapidan River Dry Riesling ($13.99)
• Rapidan River Semi Dry Riesling ($13.99)
• Rapidan River Rose ($12.99)
• Rapidan River Sweet White Reserve ($12.99)
• Rapidan River Sweet Red Reserve ($12.99)
• Rapidan River Raspberry ($12.99)
• Rapidan River Peach ($12.99)
• Rapidan River Blackberry ($12.99)
• Rapidan River Chocolate ($12.99)

The fruit wines, according to the labels, are grape wine with fruit flavors. So take that into consideration. I should also mention that the tasting pours are quite generous. We always sip and dump anyhow, but if you don’t typically, you’ll do well to monitor the amount of wine you’re getting VERY carefully. Had we consumed everything we were poured, it would have easily equaled 2-3 glasses of wine apiece.

To bring this to a shocking conclusion, we left here with wine! How’s that for a change from the last visit? The vineyard designate line is a good direction for Prince Michel to go with their better wines, and I feel like there’s more differentiation between the low and high dollar wines (except for the disappointing Symbius). The facility is still anything but cozy, the tasting staff seem harried by the high volume of tasters, and there are more non-Virginia wines here than I’m comfortable with (like the Rapidan River line) – BUT there are actually some good wines here! Turns out I’m glad we came back.

 

Cocky Fighter Pilot Awkwardly Serenades Coquettish Winery

Ah, Pollak Vineyards. We fell in love with them on our first trip to visit Charlottesville area wineries and continued to feel the love for months. A few experiences caused us to wonder- had we lost that loving feeling?

We headed to Pollak to find out for sure. It was a gray winter day, so we were only sharing the tasting bar with one other group, which was nice. Eight wines were available to taste for the paltry sum of five dollars, so we began.

Wine number one was the 2010 Chardonnay ($19), which was different from most chards. This one had lots of fruit of the more tropical variety, along with citrus and creamy oak. I’d call this a very clean white wine, and it was pleasant if unusual. Next up was the 2010 Viognier ($20). There was a ton of rich apricot and peach on the nose, but I swear that in the time it took me to bring the glass to my lips, this fruit vaulted over the rim, rolled off the tasting bar, and scampered out the door. It was very light on the palate without a lot of distinct flavor and sort of meh.

The 2010 Durant White ($16) is a blend of 60% Chardonnay, 30% Viognier, and 10% Pinot Gris. I got a good bit of lime and some tropical notes. As table whites go, this is fine. We moved to the reds with Durant’s tinted sibling, the 2010 Durant Red ($16). This had more to offer, with rich berry on the nose and nice, bright acidity.

The 2009 Merlot ($20) was also quite tasty with a nice mouthfeel, loads of berry on the nose, and a finish that hung around for a bit. The 2009 Cabernet Franc ($20) had loads of rich red fruit (their notes say pomegranate, to which I say sure), a nice hit of black pepper, and a rich and velvety feel. This is one that could get me in trouble were we to buy a wine to sit and sip at the winery. It’s the Pringles Effect: once you pop you just can’t stop.

The 2009 Meritage ($25) was still well made if not as exciting. This blend of 44% Cabernet Franc, 43% Merlot, and 13% Petit Verdot had a great fruity nose and some earthy notes to it, but it felt like it wasn’t there yet. Maybe it needs more time in the bottle? Don’t know. We finished with the 2009 Petit Verdot ($28), a grape with which I’ve had an up and down relationship. My partner reacted better to this wine than I did. It wasn’t for me.

Available for purchase only was the 2009 Mille Fleurs ($30), a Port-style wine made from Viognier. We didn’t try it (obviously) but I figured I’d mention it. So what’s the final verdict? Have we lost that loving feeling? I could talk about that fact that while I didn’t lust over everything we tried there were some definite standouts, but I think that in the interests of symmetry I’ll turn, once again, to the best movie ever made in the 80s about F-14 pilots:

 

Wine Critic Defenestrated for Describing Flinty Sauv Blanc as “Litterbox, But In a Good Way!”

We’ve been to Veritas Winery many, many times and enjoyed it. We were even lucky enough to meet the folks behind the scenes at the Wine Bloggers Conference this summer. With a trip to Charlottesville to meet friends planned, we decided to meet up at Veritas and taste some wines.

Immediately upon entering we were greeted by two staffers. I mean immediately, to the point where I nearly shouted “I didn’t do it!” After this brush with Catholic guilt (I once failed a polygraph because I felt like maybe I thought about doing something they asked me about) we were set up on the big comfy couch to do a tasting. The first wine up was the 2011 Sauvignon Blanc ($18), which elicited a “woohoo, cat pee!” from me. This wine offered loads of boxwood (cat pee) and citrus on the nose and palate, with great acid. Sauv blanc is one of those wines that is a delight when done right, and this one makes me feel like a fat hound dog getting belly rubs from the bacon fairy. This was followed by the White Star ($18), Veritas’s table white that’s a blend ofViognier, Traminette, Chardonnay, and Vidal Blanc with just over 1% residual sugar. It’s well made, the fruit and acid balancing the floral nicely. I’m not drooling as I think about it, but it’s quite drinkable.

I kid. Seriously, I LOVE Sauv Blanc. No hate mail please.

The 2010 Rose ($14) was next. This is a blend of Cabernet Franc and Merlot and has a lot of what I look for in a dry rose (lots of fruit) and a little creaminess as well. Did I mention it’s fourteen bucks? You – in the car. Now. The 2010 Merlot ($18) flung itself into my glass next. We were told the grapes were harvested over three weeks for maximum awesomeness. It had a big rich nose and was, in contrast, very light on the palate.

Next to swirl itself around my glass was the Red Star ($18), a blend of Cabernet Franc, Merlot, and Chambourcin. This is an incredibly fruity wine. How fruity? So fruity that I could see this dude on the bottle:

Not my thing, but I could see where it would really work for some people.

The sweeter wines launched with the 2010 Petit Manseng ($19 for a 375 mL). This was 7% residual sugar but thanks to the magic of the acidity in Petit Manseng, this actually had flavor. I got toasted coconut and tropical fruit. Tasty. The final wine was the 2009 Othello ($28 for a 500 mL), a blend of 61% Touriga Nacional and 39% Tannat that’s fortified with brandy and aged. The alcohol clocks in at 18% and it has a residual sugar of 8%. It was really smooth and soft with loads of dark fruit and a bit of caramel on the finish. If ever there was a wine that would benefit from the right snack paired with it in the tasting room, this is it. With the crispy corner of a rich brownie in the mouth, this wine would fly out the door.

Our tasting was fun and well done, led by Jenny (who I’m sure we’ve tasted with before). I should also mention one thing that Veritas is doing very right: when we were ready to buy wine and settle up, Jenny came back with a wireless point of sale doohickey and a portable receipt printer. Seriously? Brilliant!

 

Alec Baldwin Not Ejected From Winery Despite Attempts

We were on a mission. Since we don’t often get down to the southwestern part of the state, given that we were in the area, we determined to grind out as many visits as we could. Knowing that distances aren’t always as great as they look on the Virginia wine map, we rolled across the terrain in search of new-to-us wineries. We got to the end of a small road, and we were convinced we were lost, until we noticed a small sign on the corner of a stone wall bearing the name Molliver Vineyards. We had arrived! The tasting room was in a small, rustic building in front of the owners’ private residence. With no preconceived notions, we plunged ahead into the tasting room.

As often happens at these smaller tasting rooms, our wines were poured by the owner. We started with the ’08 Cabernet Franc ($18), a wine with lots of dark cherry and a little oak at the back of the palate. It was ok. This was followed by the ’09 Chambourcin ($17). It was muddy and indistinct, but it would be ok with a big ol’ BBQ bacon cheeseburger.

Two Nortons were up next. First was the ’08 Green Top ($16), which we were told had full fermentation with skins. It didn’t really remind me of a Norton but was chocolatey with some herbal notes. The ’08 Black Top ($16) had acid that was out of whack to my palate. We were offered a dark chocolate candy, and it made the wine go away. Yay!

We then moved on to the whites. First up was the ’10 Vidal Blanc ($15) which I didn’t like. At all. The other white we tried was the ’08 Riesling ($15). Sometimes the best way to sum up the experience is to recount my tasting notes verbatim, so here we go. “Citrus pop. Spice. Why the f*** do we have to grow Riesling in Virginia?” Need I say more?

The wines here are all made of grapes and aren’t insanely sweet. Beyond that, there’s not a lot I can say.