Doukenie Winery & Loudoun Valley Vineyards: April 2011

Ah, here we are at last in 2011. As many of you know I moved back into DC after a year across the river in Arlington. Having lived in the District for 3 years prior to that, working downtown and going to school uptown and living smack dab in the middle I got around the city a fair amount. My new 'hood is the "frontier" as some would say, but its not far from Chinatown, an area that gets old fast in my opinion thanks to the throngs of teens and tourists. Once I got settled in February we entered a March that wouldn't shake winter. The extended cold really gets to me; I start feeling trapped indoors with an innate need to escape, to run away be anywhere but sitting solemnly inside staring out a the bleak grey skies and barren trees.  That's when it dawned on me: I have a car and many of my city friends don't. Before I had a car I would try to plant seeds of ideas for trips to Shenandoah, Target and elsewhere in their minds so I didn't have to outright ask them to drive somewhere. Well, now I have the car and know that several of my non-driving friends would absolutely LOVE to get out of the city for an afternoon! So, April 2nd I rounded up Debbie & Kelly and headed to the vineyards. We were hoping for a lovely spring day, but alas it was still quite brisk out.

Stop #1: Doukenie Winery
I'm still not quite sure how to pronounce the name, either "do-kenny" or "do-kiney" its a mystery to me. I picked this spot since they were hosting an open house with several local artists. Nothing was that great, but there was a woman making decorative pottery which was fun to watch. The tasting started downstairs where the artists had their work on display and then moved up into the hopping tasting room. It was a pretty busy day there and we had to elbow our way to step up to the bar. They had a pretty good dessert wine, Hope's Legacy Raspberry. Its one of those that you taste and its sweet and alright, then you eat a piece of dark chocolate and it becomes amazing in the second sip! We were kind of rushed through the tasting since it was so busy, so we took our packed picnic and set up outside near their pond. It was tad too cold for me, but we held up and after lunching and sipping headed down the road.

Stop #2: Loudoun Valley Vineyards
Ok, if you go to Loudoun Valley Vineyards' website before going to the winery you will think you are in the wrong place entirely! The website is flashy, modern, colorful. When approaching the tasting room at the winery you see an average sized, single family home circa 1950 without many windows and a small front steps. I was definitely turned off and wanted to run away fast since it looked like we were lured there to be chopped up and forgotten. Alas, once we entered it was much more of a normal tasting room. The walls were brightly painted and there was a large porch around the back side of the house over looking the vineyard.  It was also much quieter than our first stop, we were the only guests until a party of about 10 bleach blonde barbie types rolled in, downed their glasses and were out the door before we got half way through the list! They were quite the scene, looking and acting like they came straight from LA or Orange County not Northern Virginia. I came home with a delish Sevyal Blanc since I'm really trying to expand my taste for the cool white wines in the summer.

Doukenie Barrels

Outside Doukenie

Early, early spring at Loudoun Valley