Virginia’s wineries are a great destination for a weekend or even a day off in Washington. Virginia wines are often surprisingly good, in a few cases excellent, and many wineries are easy to get to: over half of the state’s 300-plus wineries are within two hours of Washington, several within one. Getting to the wineries is half the fun, as Virginia’s mountains and farmland make for some of the most beautiful views in the country, and there is history and stories everywhere. For those who don’t live in the region, this may be news and sound a bit esoteric, but Virginia wineries are no longer a secret – not with 2.3 million visitors in pre-COVID 2017.
Wine has a long history in Virginia, at least by American standards. Thomas Jefferson famously was a huge wine fan, with a large cellar in the White House and at his home in Monticello, and made a great effort to grow gapes and make wines back in the early 1800s. His efforts failed to actually produce any wine, but one of his contemporaries, Robert “King” Carter did produce wine successfully and commercially along the Rappahannock, and one of the latter’s descendants has opened a winery – Philip Carter Winery – proudly posting “1769” at its entrance. Production stayed small, however, and essentially disappeared during Prohibition in the 1920s. The wine industry in the state was slowly restarted in the 1970s, and then has grown at a dizzying rate in the last decade as wine drinking caught on.
Virginia wines are still, largely, a Virginia affair. Few Virginia wines can be found outside of the state or Washington DC – indeed probably no more than two dozen of the state’s more than 300 wineries are represented on Washington menus or store shelves. A great many wineries only sell their wines on site (physically or by e-mail order). So if you want to really get to know Virginia wines – the only way is to go to Virginia!
Chardonnay and other classic European varietals, the staples of most wine growing areas around the world, can be found across the state. So one can find familiar wines here. But the heart of Virginia is elsewhere. The state wine grape is Viognier, a relatively uncommon grape grown in the small but expensive Condrieu section of France’s Rhone Valley, that has gone from unknown to widely popular in many areas: Viognier wines are never bland, and their character varies a lot between growers in different areas. Norton, a native Virginia species, was re-introduced to the state by Horton Vineyards, near Charlottesville, and is used by several producers, and Seyval and Vidal show up in white blends and stand-alone varietals. Tannat, a grape that has particularly strong tannins and is reputed to make “the healthiest wine in the world”, was grown for decades only in southwest France, where it was made into small quantities of Madiran (and, oddly, became the most widely grown red-wine grape of Uruguay); now one finds high-end Tannat based wines in Virginia. The most popular wines in the state are red blends. Bordeaux-style blends, in many cases labelled as Meritage, have captured the attention of many winemakers and critics, and make up many of the best Virginia wines to be had. Increasingly, Virginia’s winemakers are getting creative with blends of different types, in both reds and whites, and at Virginia wineries you can sample blends you won’t find anywhere else. In the early 2020s, we are also seeing winemakers focus more and more on single varietal wines of grapes particularly suited to Virginia’s soil and climate: Petit Manseng, Vidal Blanc, Chambourcin, Cabernet Franc, and Petit Verdot.
Sweet wines, rarely an attraction, are also developing a following in the state.
With 300 plus wineries in the state – and several opening every year – it can be hard to choose where to go. Some times just wandering around, exploring and pulling off the road when one appears can be fun. This guide is for those who want a bit more structure: opinions on where to find the best wines, good stories, and great scenery. Of course, one person’s opinion can be another’s BS. And there are some practical considerations – what’s nearby, what will take more time, is there food, can one go with a large group, what about my dog.
Wine destinations that have been established longer – Bordeaux, Burgundy, Napa Valley, Tuscany – have long lists of wines rated by internationally renowned experts: Robert Parker and Wine Advocate, Hugh Johnson, the Wine Enthusiast, and so forth. Although the quantity and quality of Virginia wines has literally exploded in recent years, cross-cutting ratings remain for now few and far between. The state wine association sponsors a panel judging competition called the Governor’s Cup, with over a hundred winemakers from across the state participating; the innovative format designates a “Governor’s Case” of the Top 12 Virginia wines submitted to the panel. A few counties are beginning to hold similar panel judging events, notably Loudoun County with their now also annual Loudoun County Wine Awards. And as for practically everything, individual reviews on a large number of wineries can be found in a variety of online sources, notably Yelp and Trip Advisor; these reviews tend not to tell one a whole lot about wine quality, but are great background in terms of the type of experience one can expect at a given location.
This BS guide to Virginia Wineries offers different approaches to planning a visit to Virginia wineries. Two borrow the Governor’s Case “top 12” format and focus on wine quality (see here how Ratings the Wines works). Others focus on the most spectacular settings, or on the most interesting history associated with the winery or its location. From these you can blend together more the different aspects of a winery tour experience – what one tastes, sees, and hears. Go for whichever is more appealing! The tours are not organized by geography and which wineries are near each other – that kind of approach can be much more easily taken through the online wine trails posted by the state or individual counties, or just following a GPS or Google Maps – but rather by how to get the best of Virginia’s wine scene. The short winery reviews provide information as available or experienced on wine quality, on the stories of or around the wineries, and on how impressive the scenery is.
Tour #1. Go for the Best – Virginia’s Top Wines: A BS Case.
Tour #2. Go for the Best – Top Wines an hour from Washington: A BS Northern VA Case.
Tour #3. Virginia wineries with the most spectacular settings.
The stories:
Knowing something about a place makes everything — including wine! — more fun. The BS Guide couples winery reviews with stories — about the land and the history around the wineries. You’ll find at least one story with every winery. Check out the big picture in A Short History of Virginia — through wine-colored glasses. If you don’t know any Virginia history, and/or have forgotten everything you learned in high school, BS’ brief primer on Virginia before the Europeans, the Colonial Era, the Founding Fathers, the Civil War and up to today will get you back up to speed. Or check the indexed catalogue of stories at Virginia Stories — history, land and wines. The BS Tour links the places where history happened, and Virginia’s wineries. So you can imbibe and learn, in one short trip… or several long ones.
Some Practical things
The section below provides some basics that will be useful in organizing your Virginia wine visits, with passages on Getting there, timing, winery policies (can I bring my dog? what about my 23 closest friends?), and business models.
Getting there
Finding wineries has gotten dramatically easier in recent years, and not only because there are so many more of them than there used to be. The state of Virginia helpfully produces annually a state-wide map of wineries, with addresses, phone contacts, and reasonably up-to-date opening times. This can help you see easily where wineries cluster together, and the roads. There is a book named Handy Guide to Virginia Wineries, self-published by Donna Gough and available on Amazon, which is generally silent on wine quality but provides background and detailed directions to most wineries in the state. Several northern Virginia counties, closer to the Washington DC metropolitan area, also have organized on-line “wine trail” guides with maps and directions and links to the wineries’ websites. One state site helpfully has links to several of the individual “wine trails,” at Virginia wine trails. But in this day and age, going online or using a GPS is the easiest way to plan routes; just keep in mind that some of the wineries tend to be tucked at the end of mountain roads which are not ideal for your GPS, and some wineries note on their websites better ways to find them.
Timing
In the Summer, most wineries are open all weekend, though there are a few that are not open to visitors. Breakfast is a little early for most of them. Planning matters more if you want to head out on a weekday, or in the offseason, when winery opening hours vary more. Some wineries are open 365 days a year, from 11 AM or noon to 5 or 6 PM. Many smaller wineries are open only Friday through Monday, to let the team focus on making the wine, or just weekends, and a handful only open for visitors sometime in April. The Virginia state map has an overview, but winery websites have the most accurate and up-to-date opening hours.
Winery policies
Many wineries, especially those closer to Washington, are struggling somewhat with “too much of a good thing.” It is terrific, from a wine lovers standpoint, from an economic development standpoint, and from a new farmer/winemaker/entrepreneur’s standpoint, that so many people are becoming interested in visiting Virginia’s wineries. Indeed it’s been one of the great success stories of the state, and of development policy for some of the northern counties – one that is attracting a lot of attention and admiration nationwide. But 2.3 million people is a lot of people – especially when tens of thousands of them all decide to do the same thing on a sunny Summer weekend. On peak days and at peak times, some wineries can get extremely crowded, and the quality of the experience can be very different than at other times. And more and more some of these people are coming in large groups, whose presence can also have a big impact on the experience you have when visiting. Several wineries have explicit policies with regards to groups: they encourage them, or they discourage or flat out don’t take them, or they require advance notice. Online reviews tend to have several examples of people disappointed because their group was turned away, along with others who were very pleased at dedicated attention – it depends on the winery. So choosing your time to go matters. If you are going at a peak time, finding wineries that have a lot of seating space or that are more out of the way is worth some pre-visit research. And if you’re part of a group, checking whether you’ll be welcome is a must.
For most people, wine goes with a meal. Most of us like to eat something while we have wine. So it is also worth checking in advance whether the winery or wineries you may visit will provide food, and whether a real meal or just snacks or just a few tasting crackers is what will be available. In some cases, winery owners go for making food part of the attraction of a visit, whether through a quality menu, having their own chef, or plugging into the growing “farm to table” movement locally.
Dogs have recently become a flash point for wineries. Some people want to have their dogs along for an afternoon in the countryside; some wineries welcome this, some prohibit it. Checking the winery website ahead of time will help.
Business Models
This topic might sound, well, boring. But it will have a big impact on your winery experience. The wineries which have exploded across the Virginia countryside the past few decades are in no way simple clones of each other. They follow a while spectrum of approaches to what is a difficult question: how do you make a go of what is, in the end, a farming business? The good thing is there’s no simple answer – and that’s a good thing for you, the wine tourist. It means you can go to dozens of Virginia wineries and have dozens of completely different experiences – you won’t get bored!
Let’s look at a few ways today’s Virginia wineries pay their bills:
1. The family farm. Ten years ago, this is probably how most people saw Virginia wineries, and there are some. Zephaniah Farm Vineyard, with the third generation on the farm turning to grapes, is a good example. Bluemont Vineyard is another. But you can see in both cases that making money in small family farms is no picnic: Zephaniah’s owners continued to work at other careers, and Bluemont is also an events venue (with its view, why not?).
2. The top-end winemaker. Think of this as the Burgundy model. It’s difficult to accede to this podium, but the few names who have are icons across the Virginia wine scene: Jim Law at Linden, Doug Fabbioli at Fabbioli Cellars, and more recently Michael Shaps.
3. Buy and crush. One normally thinks of vineyards and wineries as being the same thing. They are not, and they can be “unbundled.” Many new wineries have no choice but to crush and/or bottle someone’s else’s grapes, unless they want to wait several years after planting grapes to generate any revenues, and some keep doing so. Vint Hill is an example among many. French winemakers would be aghast, but in Virginia, with sourcing grapes being a big issue across the state, buying some portion of one’s grape supply from elsewhere is common. And for Washington DC residents, the capital’s two new wineries (District Winery and City Winery) follow this model entirely.
4. Event orientation. This may be the biggest non-wine factor in winery economics today, thanks to Virginia’s scenery and the co-developing wedding industry. Virginia wineries have become hot destinations for wedding planners, and various other functions can be found here. Many wineries have regular music events, one even hosts a half-marathon (Doukenie). Events can account from a third to a half of a winery’s revenues. And of course, pulling up at a winery which is closed for a private event is not the experience one is looking for – so checking on weekends can be important.
5. Wine specialization. Several wineries stand out for a particular idea. Examples include German-style wines at Otium, Portuguese-style wines at Morais, Kosher wines at Molon Lave, South African style at Lovingston, the largest planting of Norton grapes at Chrysalis, among others.
6. Theme wineries. Other wineries want to stand out for something other than their wines or venues. You have history at your fingertips (Gray Ghost, Vint Hill, Williamsburg), Welcome Dogs parties (Chateau Morisette, BOW), and of course the celebrities (Blenheim Vineyards, Early Mountain, and a place called Trump Winery).
You’ll see, exploring Virginia’s wineries, that these business models are not all mutually exclusive. Having a theme doesn’t mean you don’t strive to make top-end wines (Chrysalis, for example), and having a big event franchise and outsourcing a lot of your grapes doesn’t mean you’re not aiming for fine wines with your own grapes, as at Williamsburg.