Woodlawn Press Winery
The closest Northern Virginia winery to Washington DC, Woodlawn Press in Alexandria opened in July 2019. Woodlawn is a winery, and not a vineyard. This “microwinery” is run by husband and wife winemaking team Bonnie Evangelista and Andrew Rosado. Andrew was a home-wine maker, while Bonnie comes from generations of winemakers (the “press” in the winery’s name comes from a wine-making press that her Italian great-grandfather brought from Italy, and which is on display). Woodlawn Press Winery
Wine. Tier III. The wine is made at this time from non-Virginia grapes and fruit, sourced mainly from the West Coast. There are three red and three white varietal wines available, and five non-grape sweet fruit wines – made from Raspberry, Blackberry, Strawberry, Peach and Apples.
Setting. Given its location, Woodlawn presents an urban setting, without the kind of extensive countryside views you may get further away from Washington. As a micro-winery, Woodlawn has a different serving concept than most wineries, operating more like a microbrewery: free small tastings, and refillable containers, but no wine by the glass. There are lots of events here, so check their website to see what is happening.
Stories. Woodlawn Plantation. The winery’s name is derived from that of Alexandria neighbor Woodlawn Plantation. Once part of Mount Vernon, Historic Woodlawn Plantation was built by George Washington, who gave it to his granddaughter Nellie Parke Custis as a wedding present in 1799. In 1846 the property was sold to a group of Quakers, who subdivided the estate into smaller farms to show that a free labor system could work as well in Virginia as the slave labor system did. In the 1960s, Woodlawn became one of the first US acquisitions of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. The adjacent Frank Lloyd Wright designed house, the Pope-Leighey House, was moved to the plantation as a consequence of the building of Interstate 66. The name is the same as a different plantation in the Rappahannock valley. The Quakers in their time on the Estate also built a school there, and this is memorialized in the name of two elementary schools, Woodlawn Elementary School in Alexandria, and what was Woodlawn Elementary in Arlington and is now the H.B. Woodlawn program.