New tasting room makes winery hidden no more…

With the last four day weekend for the foreseeable future upon us, the wife and I had some big plans for visiting VA wine country. Saturday’s highlights included a stop at a little hidden gem the wife and I have been visiting since 2008. It is run by nothing less the most personable owner and wine maker you’ll get to meet on the VA wine trail. When we heard this winery was opening a new tasting room this weekend, we sort of scratched our heads. In all the times we visited there, there had never been more than one other small group with us at the same time. The ability to taste wines right alongside the wine making process had always been highlight for us, so why were they opening a new tasting room??? Only time would tell.


After a quick stop at closer winery on the way out to Loudon County, our stomachs said it was time for lunch, and we made the right hand turn off route 9 towards Lovettsville and Hiddencroft Winery.


Once there, the changes to this winery were immediately clear. We were greeted by a larger parking lot quite a ways away from where the old tasting room used to be. Another welcome change was that it was quite full.


A beautiful crushed gravel walk way leads you through an old 1900’s barn and up to the new tasting room which is a restored farm house.




Clyde greeted us as we walked up the porch with a hardy handshake and directed us to one of three new tasting bars. Before heading straight to the good stuff (wine of course for you sickos), we thought we'd check out the rest of the new tasting house.

Upstairs featured many private rooms, which we could see coming in handy for private tasting, or for winter hours when the outside areas may not be suitable for drinking wine.












































The main tasting bars are perfect for housing intimate tasting of no more than 5 or 6.































Plus the kitchen offers them the ability to cook for some gatherings, or in the case of today have delicious hour’ deouvers for the guest, and best yet a whole separate room for settling up at the end of the day.

The outdoor patio made for a nice setting for hosting our lunch plus a few other parties, and if the patio isn’t really your style then there are picnic tables that are scattered around the outdoor area. Now that we covered the new part of the winery, let’s get back to old reliable.




The tasting consisted of ten wines three mostly dry whites (is there any other kind), four red wines (all dry), and three fruit wines. Now for the sake of not tainting anyone’s opinion, or letting my personal biases again chardonnay show too much, I’ll cover some of their better ones, even if only in my lowly opinion.


Their third wine of the tasting was their 2009 Traminette. It started off with a nice floral nose, with a lush floral taste with a light spice finish. It has a clean finish helped out with the 2.5% residual finish.


The first red of their tasting was a 2008 Chambourcin had a smoky delicious nose followed by red fruity black pepper taste mellowed out with a touch of smoke on the finish. I won’t lie, this is the one we took to our picnic, and it carried it most of the way through our evening also.


Something you won’t find on their web site but will if you find at the winery right now is their 2009 Tannat. This is the last in their red line up. This Hiddencroft Tannat has a Smoky red fruit nose, and our small sample revealed red berries smoke and some balanced tannins.


This was a great experience. We believe that the new tasting room and outdoor area will make Hiddencroft more popular and get more recognition that it rightfully deserves, and if nothing else, gives us a great place to have lunches in wine country.