Paradise Springs Winery: The New Tasting Room

My first visit to Paradise Springs Winery was a year and half before. I've heard a lot of praise for their new tasting room and wanted to see for myself what the hype was about. We made it our second and what we thought would be our final stop for the day.

The tasting room was huge, beautiful and luxurious. As the closest winery to DC it was packed, very packed. All of the tables, stools & outdoor couches were occupied. We stepped up to the bar, but there was a wait. Unlike some other wineries there was no host, no server also greeting folks. We stood there unacknowledged for 15 to 20 minutes, to worried that if we left our spot we would miss our turn for the tasting. First of this irritated us, second I hated the feeling of hovering over the other guests who were trying to enjoy their tasting. This tasting was not off to a great start, but we hadn't had the wine yet.

We got up to the bar and our server was very nice, but mentioned nothing of our wait or their busy day. or $7 we tried 7 wines. Most of us did enjoy the 2009 Reserve Cab Sav and the 2009 Meritage. The price points for their wines are higher by the glass and bottle than other vineyards. It seems as though Paradise Springs has geared themselves toward the city crowds who want to visit the vineyards, but not get too far from the Beltway. Unfortunately this experience was less than mediocre, instead of sitting and enjoying their wines like we originally intended we quickly left and searched for the next closest option.

Original TJ from the 1870s

Paradise Springs Winery: June 2010

Just over a year ago some girlfriends of mine helped me celebrate a milestone year at Paradise Springs Winery. Its a cozy little cabin not too far from DC and when we went it was so hot and humid the air was hazy. I partially picked Paradise Springs because they were supposed to have live music, unfortunately this musician decided to play all of 2 songs over the course of 2-3 hours spending the rest of the time flirting. He then left early saying he was late for a wedding or something. We gave him a lot of crap, but it being my birthday and all I kept nudging the servers to top off my glass which they did, perhaps a little too frequently. We spent the afternoon picnicking and once we got back to our apartment we promptly made a bee line for the pool. Half the girls didn't have suits, but made due with what they did have. We also brought the pool boy what was left the cupcakes as bribe to keep the pool open later. I think we still left on time, but all summer I had a friend in that pool boy, too bad he had to go back to Serbia in September! Overall it was a great day and we finished off the night with fruit and madelines dipped in chocolate fondue! Fantastic!

The lovely ladies

Our delish spread: brie, fig jam, manchego, watermelon...