We visited Fox Meadow Vineyards and Linden Vineyards, both located near Linden, VA (Exit 13 off I-66), the Saturday of Washington's Birthday weekend. Very good wines, especially Fox Meadow's 2008 Cabernet Franc Reserve. My father has generally turned up his nose at Virginia wines, so I served that one when we had my parents over for dinner two weeks ago. (I use a decanter so he wouldn't see the label.) He really liked it and was shocked when I said it was from Virginia. The Virginia wine industry has evolved a lot—mostly in a good way—in the past ten years. As with any wine-producing region, there is some rotgut stuff out there but there's also some excellent stuff. The cellar tasting at Linden included a 1990 Cabernet Sauvignon that is no longer available for sale. That stuff was outstanding.
I wasn't a big fan of the Horton Norton the time I tried it, but I might try it again if the price were right. I didn't care for Horton's Port, either, especially not for $20 a bottle. I agree with tomterp about their regular Viognier being nice, but the other Horton wine we really liked was the sparkling Viognier. Very nice stuff except for one problem: The corks were unbelievably hard to remove. We had two bottles prior to Thanksgiving dinner a few years back and it's a real mood-buster when you wind up pulling out a pair of pliers to try to yank the cork out (and it's a bit nerve-wracking when you then wind up using a corkscrew on a bottle of sparkling wine because the pliers ripped off the round bulb that forms the top of the cork).
Ms1995hoo is out of town for the weekend, so I think this may be a beer weekend. The Port City brewery tour is on my to-do list for tomorrow.
