Still Sipping?

April 2014, Fitz 8 weeks, Winery at Lagrange

It has been a year since my last post! A whole year! No wonder some of you were wondering if I
decided to kick the blog to the curb. I did not intend to, but it appears that way. I've been a social media slacker on the twitter too.

When I started this adventure I was frustrated with my job and ready to explore beyond the DC city limits. I decided that the vineyards of Virginia was a great way to explore, visit different counties and do so with a cost effective purpose (tastings are $2-$15).

Having made it to more than 70 of Virginia's 240+ vineyards in the past couple of years I feel like I made some serious progress. My blogging definitely started to scale back when my career picked up and writing on the weekends wasn't that appealing. Have no fear though I am still sipping at the vineyards.

October 2014, Fitz 8 mo with Aspen Dale's goats

I'd like to continue documenting my visits to "new" to me vineyards, but lately I've been at those that are tried and true. A few months ago I got an adorably energetic puppy whose first outing was to the Winery at Lagrange! He's also been to Rappahannock and Aspen Dale (two vineyards I've made a couple stops at in the past year). In addition to taking the pup out to those vineyards, I've been back to Corcoran, Fox Meadow and of course Chester Gap Cellars. Of course there are always new vineyards and at the top of my list right now are Stone Tower & Maggie Malick's wine caves...oh and Catoctin Creek distillery too!

Virginia's Wine Country Half Marathon

Early in June I ran the Virginia Wine Country Half Marathon and while post race we-Debbie & I-didn't visit too many wineries we did get our taste on at the post race event. I know for sure we had some great wines from Notaviva Vineyards, Bluemont Vineyards, North Gate Vineyard, Zephaniah Farm Vineyard and the gracious host Doukenie Winery. We had others too, but those are the stand outs and for those that I haven't been to yet, I look forward to a tasting room visit. Most vineyards were serving 2 whites and 2 reds, but after 13.1 miles my usual red-friendly palate frowned at anything darker than a blush...but I was o.k. with that!

Quite possibly my favorite medal!

We managed to find a barbecue spot for lunch, Boodacades BBQ which hit the spot and gave us enough energy to make to one vineyard, Corcoran Vineyards-we were up at 4am to get out to the race by 6:00am from DC.  Corcoran was a perfect quiet stop and unlike my typical tastings I didn't take note or ask for a tour, we just did the standard tasting then settled outside with a glass of refreshing white, which may or may not have been the Traminette. Regardless, it was delightful and as much as we wanted to visit the brewery it was nearing 2pm and with an hour and half to get home we called it a day! 

Sipping near the quiet pond.