Last weekend, really it started on Thursday, was one drenched in Virginia Wine for me, thanks to the Virginia Wine Expo and the Governor’s Cup Presentation. Mind you I’m not complaining, I’m just glad that this weekend I can get a bit more rest. But on to why you really came here – the wine.
Thursday saw the presentation of the Governor’s Cup for Virginia Wine. Recently they changed the format to include both red and white wines in one competition as opposed to separating them, and while I don’t disagree with that idea, the timing of this is certainly favoring red wines, which was evidenced by the fact that only one white, the Trump Sparkling Rose’, made the Governor’s Case of 12 wines that were vying for the Cup.
Also, in case you didn’t get the notice, 2010 was a good year for Virginia Wine, as nearly all of the wines competing for the Cup were of the 2010 Vintage, 8 out of the 10 in fact. You can see the full list of wines here, but I’ll go ahead and spoil it for you – the 2009 Octagon from Barboursville won the Governor’s Cup. I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not always a fan of the Octagon, but this year it was impressive and certainly deserved to win.
Moving to Sunday, my wife, myself, and my parents, went to the Virginia Wine Expo. We avoided Saturday this year as it was becoming increasingly crowded and was taking the enjoyment out of the experience, having to fight my way through rows of drunken 20 year old college students to sample a wine and have a conversation with whomever was pouring for me, to say nothing of the hassles of trying to buy wine. My father poured for a winery on Saturday, and by his description it was a madhouse, and one that I’m glad we missed.
That’s not to say that there wasn’t a good turn out on Sunday, but only that it seemed calmer and I never had to wait very long to taste wines that interested me. Having recently made a trip out to wine country, my wife and I stuck to wineries that we either hadn’t visited in a while, like Veritas, or tried wineries that we’d never been to before, which was quite a few, and the list for us to visit continues to grow.
As usual we came home with a treasure trove of wines and our growing list of places to visit. I think there will be a trip to the Loudon County area in the very near future as many of the wineries we liked were from that region and it’s certainly one that we’ve neglected if unintentionally. For anybody that visited the Expo on Saturday I’d love to hear your take, so feel free to add your comments below, and to the organizers of the Expo, I look forward to seeing what you put together next year.
