Mount Ida Reserve is located in Scottsville, 25 miles southeast of Charlottesville, this was formerly the site of Murcielago Vineyards. Mt Ida opened its doors in 2018. A large, 5,000 acre estate. The main focus of the facility is on weddings and other events. The Reserve also runs a real estate business, selling lots on the property.
Wine. Among the Top 100 wineries in Virginia. Mount Ida’s 2019 vintage “High Ridge 1810 Reserve” red was awarded a gold medal at the 2022 Virginia Governor’s Cup state-wide wine competition. Five Mount Ida wines were awarded silver medals at the 2023 Virginia Governor’s Cup: the same vintage 2019 “High Ridge 1810 Reserve” red, 2019 High Ridge Cabernet Franc, 2021 vintage Bell Mount Rose, Moonlight White, and Mt Pleasant Viognier. The 2021 Bell Mount Chardonnay Reserve received a bronze medal at the 2023 event. Other offerings here include Tannat, Viognier and Petit Manseng, among others.
Setting. Two stars. A beautiful venue, both in terms of the tasting facilities and the views, whether from indoors or outside. Very large, so can get quite crowded and noisy. Indoor fireplace for cold days. Lunch can be ordered with your tasting. There is also a brewery on the site. Open until 9 PM, later than for many other wineries, especially those in Northern Virginia.
Stories. Weddings and wineries. Over the last couple of decades, winery weddings have gone from a rarity to a big economic driver. Wineries are among the often-rare picturesque spaces with large amounts of indoor and outdoor space; their romance and elegance (or rusticity, depending on the atmosphere sought by couples) square perfectly with social media and Instagram photo-sharing. The wedding publication The Knot, which tracks winery weddings, reports that the number has been nearly doubling every year since 2009. Virginia, thanks to the boom in winery development, has become a major destination for winery weddings, more so as wildfires have generated concerns for planners of California winery weddings. Loudoun County alone, a study by George Washington University estimated, saw some nearly 3,000 weddings contribute $118 million to the county economy in 2016, with wedding guests accounting for 30% of all hotel room occupancy in the county – and this was way up from the numbers of an earlier study that estimated the county’s wedding revenues in 2013 at $42 million. Loudoun’s numbers are very similar to those for Sonoma County in California. For those wineries that do become wedding venues, and focus on the business, wedding events can become a very large share of revenues – and help pay for the high capital costs of setting up a winery in the first place. The Virginia Wine Board calculated in 2015 that winery-related tourism was worth more to the state economy than the entire value of Virginia wine sold. The Virginia Tourism Corporation has done a fantastic job promoting Virginia as a winery venue, in tandem with their promotion of Virginia wines: the two have gone great together. Of course not all wineries want to also be wedding venues, but for those who do the last decade has seen a lot of success. Mount Ida is certainly among those Virginia wineries for whom weddings is a big deal. A look at Mount Ida’s website will say it all – you’ll find almost more information there about the venue as a wedding site than you’ll find about the wine.