Thanks to a generous wedding gift from Walter’s coworkers we had a beautiful weekend out in Virginia Wine Country. Our gift was a night in the cottage pictured above at Barboursville Vineyards in Barboursville, VA, which is about 2 hours south of where we live. We arrived at Barbourville Vineyard in the early afternoon on Friday. Our stay included a wine tasting in their tasting room of white, red and dessert wines. After the tasting we enjoyed exploring the beautiful ground and relaxing on the patio with a cheese plate and some champagne 🙂 

Later in the evening we walked back up to the main building for dinner at their restaurant, where we had an indulgent, but delicious 4-course meal with wine pairings. It was so beautiful being out in the country at night time. It was so peaceful and the sky was so clear you could see so many stars.

We had a wonderful stay complete with a pre-made breakfast left in our room to enjoy the next morning. After breakfast we headed a little farther south to Charlottesville, VA. I am planning a bachelorette party in Charlottesville in the fall, so we scoped out where we thought would be the best places to stay and eat. We also stubbled upon the Saturday farmer’s market which seemed to have everything and was a lot of fun to explore. Afterwards we found a hole-in-the-wall crepe place that was selling honey lavender lemonade! You know I could not pass up trying that after making those honey lavender cupcakes just a few weeks ago 🙂 

We departed Charlottesville in the late morning and drove to a vineyard that was sort-of on our way home called, Glass House Winery. It is a small winery, but it is so neat! The owners spent time living in South America and when they moved back they wanted to bring some of South America with them. They built a green house where you can sit and sip wine and feel like you are in the rainforest. They also grow bananas and mangos in the green house and we actually got to try one of the bananas that was just cut down with one of our wine tastings! The husband tends to the green house while the wife makes gourmet chocolates that they also sell and pair with the wine! We got to try a few and they were absolutely delicious! I added owning a winery and being a chocolatier to our life bucket list this weekend 🙂

We made one final stop at Early Mountain Vineyards on our way home. This is a much larger vineyard that had beautiful panoramic views of the fields and the mountains. We did their tasting and discovered that they have the best rosé we’ve had in the states since we were spoiled by French rosé on our trip to Paris and Nice last fall. This rosé was very dry like the ones we drank in France, most of the rosé’s we’re had here are too sweet. 

They also had this cool map of Virginia Wine Country that shows many of the vineyards from up where we live to down into the area we visited this weekend. It was pretty interesting to talk to the people working at the vineyards about differences in the kinds of grapes that places are growing in the more southern vs. more northern regions. There were definitely some grapes/types of wine we hadn’t seen before, such as Barbera, which was a wine we hadn’t had before and also the name of the cottage we stayed in! 

We had such a great time and can’t wait for our next trip!