This past Saturday my friends and I went to the Fork & Cork wine festival. It was a rainy day so we got to the festival around 2:30pm once the weather got better. I had never been to the Fork & Cork before so I was really surprised by the amount of wineries that were there and the amount of people. The amount of people kind of was a downer for the whole experience because waiting in line to taste the wines at first was a bit annoying, however, I went with a group of people so at each winery booth we visited, someone would buy the wine they liked the best and we would all share the bottle-- pretty much allowing everyone to get a decent buzz and have their fair amount of wine while waiting in the lines. Three of my favorite wines that I tasted (and coincidentally that my friends & I purchased).
They were: AmRhein Cellars, "Veranda" which is a mix of cabernet sauvignon, syrah, and petit verdot.
This wine was my favorite of the red wines that I tried from AmRhein Cellars. It was one of the only wines I've tasted where I could taste a definite chocolate presence. It was a bold and fruity blend but totally drinkable. I definitely enjoyed this red blend.
The next winery that we tasted was Lexington Valley Vineyard. I really enjoyed the wine that we tasted from there, mostly because it was a pretty warm and sunny day the sweet whites that they had were really tasty. One of the wines, Vignoles, a sweeter white wine had a ton of residue at the bottom of it, since we tasted the bottom of the bottle. It was interesting tasting the residue, it was actually really sweet tasting and enjoyable. However, my favorite of the bunch was Vidal Blanc, it was really sweet and refreshing and was the easiest of the white wines Lexington Valley had to drink. So we purchased a bottle!
Next, and my favorite of the wines was the Lexington Valley Marshall Foch, which was their new 2009 wine. It is a flavorful red blend, and it was an interesting story about how the grapes are native to Virginia and who Marechal Foch is. I decided I wanted to purchase a bottle of this wine because it was really, really different smelling. It smelled kind of pungent, but not in a bad way. It was pruney and interesting smelling and the taste and the smell really did not match. Overall this was a completely different kind of wine than I have tasted previously.
The Marechal Foch was a maroonish color, and was overall a pretty cool experience. Since I was satisfied with the wine that I bought I decided to get some food to pair with it, so I got the bratwurst with grilled peppers from the Bull & Bones stand. The bratwurst paired very well with the wine.
Overall the Fork & Cork was a really good experience, I had a great time and got to try a few new and different wines from wineries in the area. I wish that I could have tried more wines but the lines and crowds made it a bit difficult. If I could do it again, I would show up earlier that way I could make the rounds before the crowd came.
