Wine Tasting With Mom

Connor had a few days off between Spring and Summer terms, so our mom came out to Virginia for a visit. The two of them spent the days doing touristy things while I was at work. But on Saturday we all trooped out to Loudon County to go to some wine tastings.

We started at Narmada, because it's one of the best wineries in Virginia. It's owned by an Indian couple, and they sell Indian food along with the wine. They offered three different tastings, and between the five of us (Kevin and Alison were there, too) we did all three. Mom and I did the reserve tasting, which had some of the richer wines on it. We missed out on the dessert wine, but that's okay because everything we tasted was delicious. Then we got a bottle to share and had a light lunch in their tasting room.

There are a few wineries on the DC side of Narmada. We went to them for Sarah's bachelorette party years ago, but I wasn't really impressed with either of them. So we drove past Narmada to see what was that way. Cell phone reception was spotty, but wineries are pretty decent about posting signs along the road. We found Gadino Cellars. They're fairly new, and they had some excellent wines. They also just introduced a whiskey-infused port that was so delicious we all bought a bottle of it.

Then it was on to Little Washington winery, another one I'd never heard of before. I fell a little bit in love. They offer wine not just from their own vineyard, but from small wineries around the world. They employ a sommelier to travel the world and find and buy wines and send them back. They offer these to taste, sell them at their winery, and make them a part of their "Dirt Road Wine Club", which I'm considering joining. $50 gets you 2 bottles of wine either monthly, bi-monthly, or quarterly, curated from all over the world. It's a great idea, though it sucks that someone needs either be around to sign for the package or be willing to drive out to the winery to pick it up.

At any rate, I want to go back to Little Washington and take more people there. It helps that it's right next to Narmada, making it part of an excellent little afternoon trip. I just wish they weren't quite so far away.