Ask for Virginia Wine Where You Love to Dine

Barboursville won the Governor’s Cup in 2025, and winemaker Luca Paschina, in his acceptance speech, exhorted the crowd to request Virginia Wine when they ate at their favorite restaurants. As consumers, we hold an awful lot of power with where we direct our dollars, and when we focus our energies, we can really change what’s happening. Why aren’t we galvanized behind this as a movement?

The Current State – Limited Availability

We have some shops, cafés, restaurants, and bars that have embraced Virginia Wine and keep a solid menu in place (see the recent Wine Steward Awards that recognize some of these business – and thank them by going there to have some great wine!). Their number is small, but has grown in recent years, and they have dedicated followers. I love that they’re out there, and I need to spend more time at all of them! But there are a tiny handful of Virginia Wines available by the glass and a few more by bottle on most of the restaurant wine menus and available at bars I frequent.  Most often I see Barboursville, King Family’s Crosé, and I’ve occasionally seen wines from Glen Manor, Linden, RdV/Lost Mountain, Early Mountain and a handful of other places available by the bottle or glass in a few restaurants.  The overwhelming majority of what I see on menus includes a lot of mass-marketed California, Oregon and Washington State wine and wines from Europe.  Don’t get me wrong, these are good wines, and I drink some of them quite a bit.  But given the choice, I’d love to order some of my favorites and continue supporting farmers and makers in Virginia.

I really prefer to drink local whenever I can – when we had dinner at the Amber Ox in Williamsburg just about a year ago, they had the 2022 Glen Manor Cabernet Sauvignon (which I missed out on at the winery before they sold out), so I pretty much drank the whole bottle of that one. If I’m at a bar and not feeling like beer, many Charlottesville bars offer Crosé by the glass, and in the summer, that’s a mighty nice evening sip.  But my options are generally extremely limited, unless I’m at a place like Ethos Wine and Tea, which has an awesome selection.

It’s Time To Take Action

So I’ve taken it upon myself to make a tool you can use to respond to Luca’s challenge.  A few months back there was some discussion in the Virginia Wine Love group about requesting more access to Virginia Wine at local establishments.  I want to do something about it.  Here’s a great pdf you can download and use to make double-sided cards you can carry and give to a favorite establishment when you pay your bill or when you order your “something besides water to get you started?”  I recommend printing/copying on cardstock double-sided so you can get the most bang for your buck.  Practice your very best scissors skills to trim the cards neatly, (I promise this worked on two separate trials on two separate days for me). Handwrite just a few Virginia Wines you’d have by the bottle or glass if they offered it. Either let your server know what it is and that you want a manager or someone else to get it, or slip it discreetly in with your bill.

After you give it to them, next time you come back to the same place ask whether they’ve looked into getting these wines on their menu yet?  Tell them how much you enjoy that wine, and why you’d want it with their menu items.  What would be a great pairing?  If you’ve been to the winery itself and met the people who grow and make the wine, tell the restaurant team about them and say you’d love to come to an event there that featured the makers and their wines.  Don’t be overbearing about it, but share your enthusiasm for this great product and encourage the restaurant to reach out to the winery to discuss.

What Else Can You Do?

If you’re in a position to do so, consider bringing a favorite bottle to the restaurant with you and paying the corkage fee to open and sip.  If it’s a fancier place, ask if their bar manager, general manager (or if super fancy, sommelier) wants to have a sip – at the clubhouse in our neighborhood there is a neighbor who often brings wines from home. From time to time, the manager will take a sip and then spit in a cup, (they cannot actually drink on the job).  Alternatively, you can talk with them and let them know you’re leaving some of the bottle for them to have after their shift, and be sure they take it with them. Share what you love with them and tell them why you enjoy it so much.  Help them learn and broaden their perspective.  After all, when they get approached by big distributors, they’re not getting many or even any samples of Virginia Wine to carry in their restaurant. If they’re not seeking it out, they likely are not getting exposed to it.

One winemaker I spoke with expressed concern about potential by-the-glass cost for some of our really good wines.  Pricing models require that restaurants recoup most or all of the wholesale bottle cost in the first glass.  I’d rather pay $20 for a glass of fantastic local wine than $9 for a glass that frankly doesn’t interest me. As consumers we will have to step out there and put our money where our mouths are on this one. But we’re here for wines that are more representative of time and place then what we can get on sale at the grocery store, aren’t we?

It Begins With Us

This is our call to action, lovers of Virginia Wine. Make every month Virginia Wine Month. Let’s show restaurants, bars, and wine spots that Virginia Wine drinkers are here, ready, and we love our winemakers and their wines. For wineries willing to take some cards and have them available, I’m dropping some off for you when I visit for you to share with your supporters. I’d love to see a consumer movement demanding broader access to Virginia Wine in the places we love to hang out with our friends really gather momentum.  Let’s do this. Together, we can turn Luca’s challenge into a reality—and see the wines we love in the places we love to gather.

*Please drop a comment here if you do this, and get a positive response from your favorite places to go. Also, drop other ideas of ways to positively encourage your favorite places to join this movement.