Breaux Vineyards: August 14, 2011 (part 1 of 3)

This trip to wine country started at the wee hour of 5:00am when I rolled myself out of bed and into my fresh clean running gear that I laid out the night before. At 5:50am I was in front of my old row house picking up Lori and at about 6:05am we headed northwest to Leesburg. The drive there is nice and usually quiet, but those darn tolls get me every time! I can't stand to pay to drive on a road, isn't that what taxes are for?! Well at about 7:05am we arrived in Leesburg and found a place to park. At 7:30am when I thought the air seemed cool and light-for August in Northern Virginia-the gun fired and I was off and running the Leesburg 20k (that's 12.2 mi for you non-runners & Americans). I'll spare you the mile-by-mile recap and summarize to say that I will never, ever run another race in this area in August or July. After I finally hit my stride the semi-cool rain was hit by the sun and the humidity was over 80%. Horrendous. On top of that it was a very quiet course, mostly on the W&OD trail which made the hard spots that much harder without a cheering section. After I finished in just over 2 hours, dripping wet. I dried out and rewarded myself-and Lori-with some much deserved wine tasting.

I had heard great things about Breaux Vineyards so I'd been wanting to visit for awhile. As its one of the furthest wineries out we decided to start there. We arrived just before 11:30 and took a moment to take in the view. Gorgeous. Rolling hills, extensive 404 acres of vineyards & so peaceful, we saw several very large butterflies flitting about. The logo of Breaux is a crawfish as the owner hails from Louisiana, but the tasting room was very elegant and Italian. We wandered up to the bar and were met with a very friendly & knowledgeable server. For $10 we sampled 11 wines. Shockingly my favorite was the 2010 Sauvignon Blanc, it was crisp & clean from its steel barrel days. My second favorite was the 2010 Jennifer's Jambalaya which was also a white blend. It was just a little bit sweet with .5% residual sugar and had a little bite almost an effervescence to it that I liked.  Always the red fan, I really didn't like any of their reds and did the small wine taste followed by the snobby glass dump. I NEVER do that! Waste wine, heavens no! I thought maybe it was my post-race dehydration that had gotten to me and that's why I didn't like the dry reds, but Lori agreed the reds, just weren't that great. I did like the lesson on Meritage that we got as it cannot be called a Bordeaux unless from that region it is "marriage" and "heritage" combined.  To carry a Meritage you actually need to pay a licensing fee to use that name. Overall Breaux was a beautiful sight, but their wines left something to be desired; I was a little disappointed after we left, but excited for the next stop.

Looking out from the front of the tasting room.