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.

Route 9 Barrel Tasting: Sunset Hills Vineyard

When our group headed out for the Route 9 Barrel tasting, the plan had always been to end at Sunset Hills. It made sense, first my wife and I are wine club member so we get to use the upper level for the lunch we had pack with us. Second because we have been addicted to their 2010 Viognier which we wanted to let our friends try, and last because it has a great tasting room and a nice place to relax after a hard day of Va wine tasting.

So when we walked in the door and were pretty much directed down stairs to their private tasting room and production facility, we smiled because it had got a little later in the day than we had planned, and we were all really hungry. We have done the standard tasting many time, so my wife and I took it easy waiting to be pointed back to the barrel room. When the door opened up to the barrel room and the group exited there was about 10 or so of us ready to enter and talk to Nate Walsh Sunset Hills wine maker about what we were about to sample.

In the room were two barrels and a sign talking about futures for chardonnay so I expected chardonnay to be the white wine from the barrel to be tasted. However surprise, Nate walked around with a sample of the next vintage of viognier. It had the typical tropical flower and fruit nose that is associated with a viognier, but lacked a little of the balanced the explosion of fruit I have grown accustom too with their 2010 vintage. Overall it was well balance and probably will develop more until it is ready to be bottled.

Nate was curious about the group’s experience out during the route 9 Barrel tasting. It was toward the end of the day, and he was surprised that no one in the group and made it to all five wineries participating. Like ourselves, most people there had made it to four of them and for a few this was just their second stop, but they had said they planned on taking full advantage of the second day of the barrel tasting. I believe the two day event was the way to go. Trying to squeeze in that many wine tasting would bound to lead to trouble, especially because the wineries through in a their standard tasting which means a glass of two of wine at each winery visited. Although I didn’t say it there, I’ll admit it here. My pallet was pretty trashed even after four, something I’ll remember going into next year if we do this again. And we had only done part of the standard tastings at the other three wineries we visited.

After a big lead in, we found out the other wine we would be sampling the cellar was Nate’s Petite Verdot. It was right what we were expecting a smooth blend of fruit, oak and balanced tannin. I had found the nose a little over barring but coming from the barrel that was not so unusual. I’m excited to taste the final product when it is released, even if that isn’t in the foreseeable future.

The Petite verdot signaled the end of the barrel tasting, my wife and I caught up with our friends upstairs in the member’s only area for some delicious lunch. We opened a bottle of their 2010 Viognier and enjoyed conversation and some laughs and memories of the day’s experience.