This weekend I went to the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Va to visit my boyfriend Carl. About 5 minutes from campus is the Williamsburg Winery, the largest winery in Virginia, producing 65,000 cases of wine per year. We went there on Sunday the 29th and expected to pay ten dollars for a tour of the facilities, a wine tasting and a complimentary Williamsburg Winery wine glass. To our great surprise, they allowed us to do all of this for free (they usually only allow W&M students to do it for free, but they let me slide). It was a beautiful day in January, 52 degrees and sunny. The 300 acres of land were looking somewhat barren but this was to be expected in the winter.
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| Some of the vines at Williamsburg Winery - in the winter they prune and train the vines so that when they begin to grow in the spring and summer they will form canopies, an ideal shape for harvesting. |
The tour started right when we got there and began with an informational video. The video talked about wine in general and the history of the Williamsburg Winery. It wasn't very long but it was informative. After this, our tour guide, Ella, showed us the facilities beginning with the banquet room. This room is where they typically host weddings and other events such as tasting schools, etc. It was modeled after Chateau Bordeaux in France and the fireplaces were originals from that area.
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| The banquet room at the Williamsburg Winery. Later that day they were hosting a class on tasting wine in this room.
Next we toured the red wine cellar and the white wine cellar. The red wine cellar was much larger and contained hundreds of oak barrels (each of which can hold 300 bottles worth of wine). The white wine cellar was smaller because a lot of their whites are being held in stainless steel casks in another part of the facility. Interestingly, in all of the rooms where wine is aging they play classical music at night for the wines. On the tour we saw the purifier where the white wines are filtered. If the whites are not put through the purifier, they will be murky and dirty looking - not ideal for white wine. Ella also gave us a tour through their small museum. This museum features the evolution of wine bottle shapes in America as well as a small exhibit about the skeleton they found on the grounds of the winery when they built it in the 1980's. After finding the skeleton, the founders of the Williamsburg Winery buried it in a secret place along with a bottle of white wine, a bottle of red wine, and a corkscrew.
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| This is a small portion of the red wine cellar. It can hold up to 800 barrels. |
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| The stainless steel casks that the white wines are aged in. |
After the tour was the wine tasting. We were able to taste eight of the wines that they make at the winery. 80% of the grapes that they use to make their wines are from other vineyards in Virginia but they grow 8 varieties of grapes on their land. Here is my review of the wines we were able to taste:
2008 Samuel Argall Dry Rieling: This wine was delicious but not at all what I expected from a Riesling. When I think of Riesling I think of sweet wine but this one was not sweet at all. It only had .08% residual sugar and was actually quite sour. My lips puckered when I drank it but I really enjoyed the wine and thought it was very refreshing (I ended up buying this wine at the end of the day for only $8.40!)
2008 John Adlum Chardonnay: Compared to the Riesling, this wine was very sweet, fruity and light. It was aged in stainless steel as well as neutral French oak so it was not very oaky at all. This was one of my favorite of the eight.
2007 Vintage Reserve Chardonnay: This was by far my least favorite and thinking about it now makes me queasy. This Chardonnay was aged in French, American and Hungarian oak barrels. Because of this, it was extremely oaky as well as buttery. The wine literally smelled like melted butter and I hated it. This one was Carl's favorite wine though so to each his own!
2006 Hening's Statute Virginia Claret: This red wine is a blend of 4 different types of grapes and was aged in oak barrels. It was spicy but fruity and pretty light. Our tour guide recommended drinking it with Italian food.
2006 Merlot Reserve: This wine is 80% Merlot, 20% Cabernet Sauvignon. It was really heavy and I could see debris in the glass. However, I thought it was really tasty and the after taste was pretty mellow. I could tell that it was oaky but it didn't bother me the way the Reserve Chardonnay did.
2006 Gabriel Archer Reserve: This wine was by far my favorite of the wines we tasted (and of course the most expensive). It is a Bordeaux Blend and very fruity. It wasn't too heavy but was still rich and delicious.
Vin Licoreux de Framboise: This was the last wine we tasted and was a dessert wine. It was 80% Merlot mixed with Raspberry Juice. The sugar content was around 5% but this was one of the sweetest wines I've had. I loved it. The tour guide recommended buying brownie mix and cooking it by using this wine instead of water. She also suggested just pouring it over a bowl of ice cream... yum.
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| Some of the award winning wines we tasted. |
Our trip to Williamsburg Winery was really fun and relaxing. We learned a lot about wine and had a great time walking around the facilities. In total I spent $8.40 on a tour, a tasting, a Williamsburg Winery wine glass, and a bottle of wine. What a deal!
