Since we’re celebrating Virginia Wine Month I’m being a little more thoughtful about the selections I’m pouring in my glass when Thursday evening rolls around. While I try to refrain from imbibing on school nights, sometimes it’s just that kind of week, you know?
So last week I went back to one of the grapes I fell in love with early in my Virginia wine love affair. I felt very cutting edge cause no wine drinkers I knew were drinking a Tannat. Jason Murray made the first Tannats I loved too. So pulling an extra bottle of his 2021 Tannat from my shelf made sense.
This is so dark and lovely – very deep, rich tannins coat your tongue and it’s a big, beautiful, bold wine. I attended their vertical tasting, and this is a wine that is very sensitive to Virginia’s swingy climate. Across eight vintages this varietal comes across with common characteristics, but it is a good one to really see the nuances of different vintages in Virginia – how a really dry hot season impacts flavor, and what cooler, wetter seasons taste like. What a cool wine.
So I continued the next day with this gorgeous baby from Walsh:
With 2020 being a cooler growing season after hot 2019, this wine is a little more subdued, but still shows the beautiful bold characteristics of tannat – rich dark fruit with plenty of plum, almost blackberry sensation to it. They don’t use much oak (or if they do, it cannot be brand new because I don’t pick it up at all!) in this wine, so there is big full fruit flavor to enjoy.
I already shared the outing to Knight’s Gambit Vineyards and some fantastic Pinot Grigio we enjoyed there. I love getting to new places, and that’s important to do during Virginia Wine Month.
Of course weekend #2 was finished with a wine that no Virginia Wine Lover should pass up during Virginia Wine Month:
Again from the cooler 2020 vintage, as I am holding my 2021 stock for a little bit. Since 2021 was a hotter year, that vintage is a little bolder and packs a little more heft. The 2020 is still full of all that I love about this wine, and the story, as always, the genesis of this blend is the best wine story ever.
The following week was also one of those weeks… and it led up to my birthday, so selections had to be especially meaningful. We broke the midweek rule once again. The first selection from the rack is my very last bottle from Glen Manor:
Petit Verdot really is one of my favorite wine grapes because of the deep tannic punch it packs. The fruit flavors are generally massive and have a very strong backbone (isn’t that what the experts call structure?), generally shows through in any blend. I love it as a single varietal, and this particular bottle is a great, strong example. They grow increible fruit, and in terms of flavors I always get rich plum and blackberry from this – fruits so dark and full. This Petit Verdot has also always felt luxurious to me – there is a velvety quality to it. In my fantasy long weekend vacation, we rent a cabin in the Shenandoah with a hot tub overlooking the valley and we visit Glen Manor and a few other great places there and retreat to the airbnb with amazing wine for the evening. Sigh. Someone remind my husband I need this, please.
Thursday night was spent with a strong contender for Wine of the Year in my book:
I like the crispness of this wine, even on a cooler evening. I get lots of wonderful, bright citrus fruit from sipping this and on hot summer days it was the refreshing bliss I needed in the afternoon. This wine really knocked my socks off this year, and I’m so glad I went to their release party. Looking forward to the 2024! My last bottle of this has now been sipped.
Birthday eve I picked carefully through my racks to avoid the go-to’s and what long-time readers may expect that I’d choose, and I pulled this beauty from the back rack that I hide for long-term storage:
I think I got this in a club package, and I think AJ actually shared some with us when I was there with Kenny and Kathy. Talking about smooth and velvety earlier in this post, multiply that by 1000. This wine was gorgeous, and is tasting fantastic right now – it’s well worth opening this weekend if you have one. Big full fruit on it with nice easy tannin, this is a beautiful sipper that can pair well with anything for dinner, or be enjoyed by itself. We ended up pairing it with Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy, and finished it off with some HGTV. This is one I wish I had a few more of on my rack. I think the theme of the third week of Virginia Wine Month in my house was “Open those bottles you’ve been holding and enjoy them now!”
There will be more wine the rest of this weekend and then the final weekend of the month. We may slide a barrel tasting in too just because.
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And drop a note, what are you drinking to celebrate Virginia Wine Month?
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