On Saturday...

On Saturday morning, we awoke later than we expected. We planned to visit wineries for the day and wanted to get an early start. Since we were behind, we skipped showers and after a quick breakfast, we headed out, stopped for coffee on the way and in an hour we were at our first winery. We decided on the wineries in Northern Virginia because they were close and we hadn't been to half of them.

Our first winery (of six) was Veramar in Berryville. Erin liked the simple fruitiness of them but they wouldn't be very good with food.

Next, we headed to the Village Winery in Waterford. It was a small, husband and wife operation where everything was done by hand. The wines were average, but it was neat because the owner took us into the barrel room and told us how he got started making wine.

Our third winery was Waterford. We had to go down a long dirt road, which was really weird because there were actually neighborhoods back there with large, expensive houses. The wines were pretty good, but we wouldn't likely go back because it took too long to get in and out on the dirt roads (we had to drive down the second half of the dirt road to leave). While driving through the neighborhoods on the way in and on the way out, there were an abnormally large number of houses displaying statues, some fairly large.

The fourth winery we visited was Windham, newly renamed Doukenie Winery because they couldn't afford to fight a lawsuit brought on by Wyndham Winery in Australia for trademark infringement on the name. I think it is ridiculous and won't buy Wyndham wines anymore from Australia because Windham in Virginia makes less than 2000 cases of wine each year and I can't see how their business would have an impact on the other. Another case of large corporations attacking small, family owned businesses. It was busy, so they offered to take us down to the barrel room, which we were delighted because we felt like special customers because we got to go behind the scenes. Windham, or now Doukenie was Erin's favorite winery of the day. We liked the wines enough to buy a bottle of Fume Blanc.

Next, we stopped by Hillsborough winery. They were very busy with a large group, who happened to be celebrating the birthday of Erin's favorite former professor from GMU, Dr. Kevin Clark and his twin brother, Keith. It was nice talking with him for a bit. The people working at the winery (the owners) were rather inattentive and somewhat rude. We just wanted to stop by and taste the wines quick on the way to the next winery and we wasted a lot of time while they ignored us, even after the large group left. The wines weren't very good anyway, and we were glad to be on our way to Breaux Vineyards, which we heard good things about from our friends Sandi and Shawn.

The last winery, Breaux Vineyards, was a nice end to the day of tastings. They were very nice, and the wines were very good. We each bought a glass and enjoyed some cheese before heading to Charlestown Races and Slots in West Virginia, which was only 15 minutes from Breaux, so we could not pass up the opportunity to blow some money, since we'd never been there before.

The environment at Charlestown was pretty depressing (ie: derelict gamblers). The ringing of the slots still sucked us in. Erin was queen of the 2 cent slots, making about $40, at least $20 of which was spent again before we left. My favorite thing was seeing the horses in the paddock before the race. We bet on two of the horses and lost, so we decided to go back to the slots because it was cold outside and too smokey inside near the horse racing.

A few coins later, we decided to head back to Northern Virginia, to relax the rest of the evening. The drive seemed a lot longer on the way home. Stay tuned for our next winery tour. It'll probably be soon since it is our favorite thing to do!

~Ryan

www.doukenie.com
www.breauxvineyards.com
www.ctownraces.com