Enjoying a one time only wine....

After a rough day on the VAWine trail, there is nothing better than coming back enjoying a good dinner and some wine. Today's activities involved a tasting at two great wineries, Little Washington Winery and Ducard Vineyards, events that will be blogged about later. As a bonus Little Washington was hosting a wine and oyster event featuring Virginia oysters. A bonus hit for both me and my wife.

The raw oysters from Rappahannock River Oysters inspired us to have a seafood dinner, so after a quick stop at Wegman's , we raced home to make a scallop and pasta dish and finish the bottle of wine we had started at Ducard Vineyards.

While making dinner, our pre-dinner sipper was the continuation of 2nd Corps. It is a Viognier blended with a touch of Vidal Blanc. It was a fruit forward wine with good weight, but very little acid. It was slightly sweet which cut through an bitterness that is sometimes present in Virginia Viogniers.

To Compliment the delicious dinner seen the right, we decided to open a treat from us. A wine we had only got a chance to taste briefly while picking up our August Estate club shipment from Sunset Hill Vineyards. The wine of choice for tonight would be the 2011 Petite Manseng.

We were a little late getting it slightly chilled with our dinner, so I finished off the last of our pre-dinner sipper with the first few bites of dinner. However, when I finally got to the Petite Manseng I was pleasantly surprised. It displayed floral nose with hints of Asian pear, my wife got a good sniff of spice she described as coriander. The pallet showed a very light body with firm acid on the finish. It showed star fruit flavor with hints of rose petal. Overall it paired well with our dinner, but it is a food wine. It probably wouldn't fair well as a sipper by itself. However it was great pairing to end our day of wine touring. The worse part of this is that we won't get a chance to taste it again. This was released only to the estate club members as it had limited quantities, and won't likely be available for purchase by the time we head back.