A Virginia winemaker invited our friends at Swirl, Sip, Snark to assemble a “Top 20” list of their favorite Virginia wines, and ask other Virginia wine bloggers to do the same. He’s curious to see which wines stand out, and thought you might be, too.
Rick and I are honored to be asked to weigh in. You may know that we went to 153 Virginia wineries between July and December last year, conducting “research” for our launching-any-day-now iPhone app, Virginia Wine in My Pocket. We tasted in the neighborhood of 2,000 wines, so it’s surprising we can remember our names, much less wines.
I admit I find it nearly impossible to separate the wine from the overall winery experience; if we settled into a nice long chat with the winemaker in a sunny tasting room, you can bet we found something to like about the wine, and left with a bottle or two. So coming up with a list of twenty favorites is not easy, and I tried hard to separate winery-love from wine-love. Some wines, though – many, actually – just stick with you.
Here are ours. Well, mostly mine, but Rick’s preferences show up here, too. I’ve already proclaimed our love for the smoky Gotterdammerung, and we reported on our reserve tasting experience at Chateau O’Brien (in retrospect, this review gives light praise to what was a truly astounding tasting). Some of these picks will surprise you. We found wonderful wine near and far, in tiny spaces and wide open places. And we wish the same for you. (Let us know if you need any help putting together an itinerary; we’re happy to help, and it’s a pretty good bet we’ve been there 
Note: Rick and I don’t typically keep tasting notes–our focus is on the overall winery experience–but you can count on the other bloggers to add lively and insightful notes for each of their picks; they have taste buds on top of taste buds, those folks. See the other lists here: Swirl, Sip, Snark (Va Wine Diva and Grape Envy Guy), Frank Morgan (who wrote up a great analysis of all the Top 20 lists) at Drink What YOU Like, Paul and Warren at Virginia Wine Time, Wine About Virginia, Allan at CellarBlog.
- Valhalla Vineyards, Gotterdammerung ’01 (Cab Franc/Merlot), $18
- Chateau O’Brien,’07 Limited Reserve Tannat, $79
- Keswick Vineyards, ‘09 Cabernet Franc, $25
- Veritas Vineyard, Chardonnay ‘08 (’09 available, $18)
- Glen Manor Vineyards, Sauvignon Blanc ‘07, $22
- Villa Appalaccia, Aglianico ‘07
- AmRhein Wine Cellars, Aglianico ’07, $18
- LeoGrande Winery, ‘07 Barbera, $15
- Glass House Winery, C-Villian (Chambourcin, Cabernet Franc, Merlot)
- Jefferson Vineyards, ‘07 Meritage, $30
- Cooper Vineyards, ‘08 Reserve Norton, $22
- The Hague Winery, ‘09 Cynthia dessert, $24
- Pearmund Cellars, ‘08 Ameritage Reserve, $23
- Corcoran Vineyards, ‘09 Cabernet Franc
- Castle Gruen Winery, King’s Red (sold out)
- Cave Ridge Vineyard, ‘07 Syrah, $20
- Hillsborough Vineyards, ’07 Onyx (100% Tannat), $32
- Delaplane Cellars, Cinq ‘08 (Meritage), $30
- Hiddencroft Vineyards, Dutchman’s Creek Blend, $23
- Hume Winery, ’07 Detour (Cab Sauv/Merlot), $23
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Pearmund Cellars Ameritage Reserve was the first red wine in Virginia that I thought was competitive with California and European red blends. Saw you thought highly of Hiddencroft Dutchman’s Creek too. Great wine, great winemaker.
Kurt
Nancy Reply:
March 2nd, 2011 at 7:37 pm
Hi Kurt! Good to hear from you. There were so many good choices at Pearmund (one of Rick’s few “everything here is good” winery stops), and I know there are more predictable and more expensive choices at Hiddencroft, but we were really impressed by the “house” wine. I could easily have done a “Top 60″ list – what about you?
Rick/Nancy: Great list – thanks for participating. I’ve updated the summary post to include your wines in the overall stats: http://drinkwhatyoulike.wordpr.....-analysis/
Cheers!
Nancy Reply:
March 2nd, 2011 at 7:38 pm
Thanks a lot, Frank. I was really interested to see the overlaps… and hope to get a chance to buy those we didn’t vote for
A top 25 maybe. On most of the lists I saw at least one I considered and one or two that I “forgot”
Kurt – same here… in reviewing everyone’s lists realized there were a couple I could have included. We should all do this again in 6 months to see how our preferences have changed.
Frank…I agree with you…I bet in 6 months I’ll have a different list…but many of the ones on there now would still show up, but others would be replaced with ones I’ll be tasting in the near future I bet.
Or maybe post a regrets list?