On April 20th, my mother and I attended Celebration of the Vine. This wine festival was in Chesterfield, Virginia and happens every year around this time. The festival featured 19 wineries and 3 food vendors and was absolutely packed. This was the first wine festival I have attended, so I was looking forward to it, but didn't know what to expect. It turned out to be an awesome experience that I will definitely do again. After we paid the $20 entrance fee we received our wine glasses and immediately looked for a relatively open wine tasting.
Of the 19 wineries there, we went to 18 of them. Some were memorable such as Mattaponi and others forgettable and expensive. The first winery we went to was Narmada. It featured some basic wines, but also some unique wines that got my attention. The first wine I want to review was from Narmada and was definitely one of the most memorable.
Name - Midnight, 2010
Varietal - Chambourcin
Price - $21
Winery Review - Fantastic juicy, fresh grape flavor underpinned with notes of strawberry, cherry and cranberry. 100% Chambourcin aged in French and American Oak.
My Review - The color of this wine was bright red, such as fresh strawberries. The nose had toasted almond, vanilla, and fresh fruit. The palate was jammy, sweet, smooth and rich. This wine had an incredible sweetness for a red and only had 1.6% residual sugar. Rating 8.5/10.
We moved onto the next winery called Lazy Days. This winery featured 6 wines, 3 red and 3 white. This winery featured a very similar sweet red wine that was similar to my last review, but for the sake of diversity I'm going to a review a delicious white this winery had.
Name- Sweet Lazy Days White Wine
Varietal- Blend of viognier, traminette, petit mansang
Price- $18
Winery Review - A nice blend of viogner, traminette, and petit mansang, this wine has a residual sugar of 2.5%. It makes for a wonderful table or after dinner wine on those warm summer nights.
My Review - The color of this wine was straw yellow. The nose featured vanilla, crisp apples and spices. The palate was incredibly sweet, smooth, lightly crisp and almost tasted like angel food cake. Rating 9/10.
After a few more tastings we ended up at Virginia Mountain Vineyards tasting. This winery featured 8 different wines that were all very good, but one was exceptional. This wine was called Holiday Spice.
Name - Holiday Spice
Varietal - Special blend
Price - $15
Winery Review- a special blend with a splash of spice. Serve chilled or warmed.
My Review - The color of this wine was garnet. The nose was incredible and featured cinnamon, nutmeg, vanilla and cherries. It reminded me of Christmas in a glass. The taste was very smooth, silky, vanilla, almonds and cherries. Rating 10/10.
Name - Acacia Gold
Varietal - blend
Price - $14
Winery Review- A semi-sweet blend with a pleasing fruity finish. A great picnic wine.
My Review - The color of this wine was golden yellow. The nose was crisp apples and spices. The palate was crisp, smooth and sweet.
After this we went to Mattaponi Winery and this was by far my favorite. All of their wines were unique and featured varietals I have never heard of. My favorite was a wine blended from 100% blueberries, which is probably my favorite wine to date. Right before Mattaponi we bought some kettle corn and this was the first food we had at the festival. The saltiness of the kettle corn and the sweetness of the blueberry wine made for a satisfying combination.
Name - Tibik - Kizismin
Varietal - Blueberries
Price- $20
Winery Review - The wine is high in antioxidants with 100 percent blueberries, "The Super Fruit"
My Review - The color of this wine was violet. The nose wasn't strong and I only picked up the natural scent from the blueberries. The palate was incredibly sweet, unique, smooth, no tannic component and tasted like blueberries. This wine was by far my favorite of all the ones I tried and was definitely one of the most unique wines. This wine had a very low residual sugar, which surprised me due to the natural sweetness.
Next, we went to Barboursville Vineyards tasting. There were a ton of award winning wines on this list, but none of them tasted that great to me. There was nothing unique about any of these and all of them were excessively dry tasting.
Name - Octagon
Varietal - blend
Price - $50
Winery Review - Gold Medal, 92 points
My Review - I figured this wine was going to be awesome since it was $50, I was wrong. The color of this wine was dark purple. The nose was full of pepper. The taste was dry, very tannic, non-fruity, and peppery. This may be one of those "complex" wines you grow into, but I wasn't feeling it.
The last winery we went to was Horton Cellars. Horton had a huge list that featured 18 different wines. We ended up skipping the dessert wines, although I'm sure they tasted incredible. This was probably my second favorite winery due to all of their unique wines. I also liked the wine pourers here the most because they had great personalties, which a lot of other wineries lacked.
Name - Sweet Concord
Varietal - blend
Price - $12
Winery Review - highly aromatic, fruity grapey flavors, sweet crisp finish. Wine for "Hard Times!"
My Review - The color of this wine was ruby. The nose featured strawberries and spices. The palate was very sweet, crisp, soothing and strawberry jam. I was definitely in the mood for sweet wines on this day probably due to the nice weather. Something about sweet reds I like, because I expect it to be somewhat dry and instead get a sweet taste. Rating 9/10.
Name - Niagara (Sweet White Wine)
Varietal- Blend
Price - $12
Winery Review - extremely fruity aromas, sweet grapey flavors, full mouth feel. Great for sippin' on a hot summer afternoon.
My Review - The color of this wine was a beautiful shining orange. The sunlight reflected its color perfectly. The nose of this wine had nutmeg and peaches. The palate was crisp, smooth, and tasted like a ripe, sweet peach. Rating 10/10.
My time at the festival was very fun and I will definitely return here next year. After we finished tasting all of the wines we returned to buy bottles of our favorites. We ended up buying two blueberry wines, one Holiday Spice and one Niagara. I also received a free wine slushy for purchasing the Holiday Spice bottle and it was incredibly delicious. At the end of the day we ended up trying 91 different wines and had a great time doing it. After being in this class for a semester, wine is my favorite alcohol by a long shot and look forward to trying as many as possible.
