It was a
dreary day outside on the morning of Blacksburg Fork and Cork 2013 but, alas,
there was wine to be tasted! My friend, Brianna, and I packed an umbrella and
headed out to the First and Main shopping center for the festival and checked
in to get our event wine glasses. I was so glad that I had purchased our
tasting tickets ahead of time at Kroger because the event was sold out! We
headed down to the very end to start off with the Trump Winery tasting because
I had heard good things about their wines- they were actually featured at a
wine/food pairing dinner at Preston’s the night before Fork & Cork. – and
got super annoyed by the long line that we found ourselves in. Luckily for us,
two girls behind us had a bottle of wine that they had purchased and share some
with us during the long wait. When we finally reached the tasting table, we
sampled the following five wines:
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| Brianna and I (I am on the right) right as we arrived- we were thirsty! |
Blanc de Blanc $25
Brut Sparkling wine made from
100% Chardonnay, using the traditional French method Champenoise. Nose of green
apple, brioche and slight pear. On the mouth there is a crisp
acidity with
citrus notes. Aged 22 months on the lees. Pair with mild cheeses, sushi or
serve as an aperitif.
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| The pourer at Trump Winery was very knowledgeable! |
Chardonnay 2012 $17
90% in stainless steel and 10% in
French oak barrels. Vibrant grapefruit, pear and citrus aromas that are lush
and crispy on the palate, finishing with a subtle creaminess. Refreshing, crisp
and clean, this wine is easy to drink by itself and stands up well to food.
Pair with gazpacho, caprese salad and quiche.
Rose 2011 $10 (Festival Special)
Dry rose blend of Cabernet
Sauvignon, Merlot and Cabernet Franc. Nose of strawberry
and flowers. Raspberry
and grapefruit on the palate. Excellent balance between acidity and volume.
Pair with anything off the grill, pizza, charcuterie, and cheese.
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| Trump Winery Rose |
My thoughts: This was the wine
that I had on its own as well as with food. On the nose it was mildly fruity
but is much drier than I would have expected. It was well-balanced and light-
it did not leave me feeling sluggish.It was sort of like tannic, watered down
fruit juice.
Simply Red 2008 $17
48% Merlot, 26% Cabernet Franc,
21% Cabernet Sauvignon and 5% Petit Verdot. Lightly toasted aromas of black
currant, blueberries and cherries. Smooth, medium bodied with flavors of black
cherry and cocoa with a long finish. Pair with chicken, pork tenderloin, and
soft cheeses.
CRU $28
100% Chardonnay juice fortified
with brandy, and then aged in bourbon barrels. Try it on the rocks or mixed for
a sweet treat with a kick. 14% rs.
My thoughts: This port was insanely sweet- I don't think I could have managed more than the half sip that I took. It was like drinking pure corn syrup.
As Fork
& Cork was my first wine festival, I was surprised how hurried the tastings
were; I only had time to jot down notes for a few wines all day because of the
volume they were pouring.
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| Me, ready to wait in line now that we had provisions of wine! |
Next up
was Hill Top Berry Farm & Winery. I was beyond excited because I am a huge
fan of mead after first trying it at the Maryland Renaissance Festival over the
summer and Hill Top has 12 different styles of mead in addition to their other
wines! Although Hill Top has a rather large selection of wines/meads, I only
sampled five of them:
Cranberry Table Wine $18.95
Hold onto your taste buds! This
tart wine is perfect paired with turkey during the holidays. Try it in a
cosmopolitan, spritzer or in cranberry lemonade.
My thoughts: Keep this one away
from the kids! If I did not know it was wine, I would have mistaken this for
cranberry juice cocktail. It made my mouth pucker and was very authentic in its
taste. I like the winery’s suggestion to have it with turkey during the
holidays! I would definitely also try making a spritzer from it.
Virginia Peach Wine $16.95
This “front porch” wine is like
biting into a ripe, juicy peach, without the pit and the fuzz. This delicate
sipping wine also pairs well with seafood.
Lavender Metheglin
$16.95
Derived from the
Welsh word Meddyglyn, meaning healing drink, metheglin is spiced mead. Ours is
spiced with lavender flowers and is both fragrant and delicious.
My thoughts: I
really was not sure what to think of this mead. The lavender metheglin was like
nothing I have ever tried before. It was like mulled wine/cider but with a
definitive hit of lavender and maybe even cinnamon. I liked it a lot but cannot
for the life of me think of what I would pair this drink with food-wise as I am
afraid it would overpower any culinary flavors.
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| Banners for some of the wineries that were represented at Fork & Cork 2013 |
Dragon’s Blood $16.95
This rich, bright red pomegranate
melomel pairs with grilled or smoked foods, red meats and even chocolate. It is
both slightly sweet and slightly tart and very delicious.
My thoughts: The Dragon’s Blood
mead smelled exactly like a bonfire, complete with the burning wood and smoke.
I found it to be just sweet enough but with the earthy, smoke flavor that I
expected based on the nose.
Hunter’s Moon $21.95
Our Spiced Pumpkin Mead is just
the trick to treat your taste buds! Slightly sweet with pumpkin pie spieces, this
is a great holiday wine and delicious all the time!
My thoughts: The Hunter’s Moon
mead was one of the wines that I could not stop thinking about after I tasted!
It was phenomenal. Very, very rich and thick, it smelled and tasted just like
pumpkin pie (very similar to the famous Southern Tier Pumking beer), with a bit
more clove. A bit thick for the summer months, come fall there will definitely
be a few bottles of this in my wine cellar.
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| These women were irish-style cloggers- it was fun to see local talent that had nothing to do with food/wine in addition to all the wine-related activities. |
After
leaving the Hill Top booth, Brianna and I went off in search of some food but
got distracted and ended up waiting in line at Fincastle Winery where we waited an absurdly long time
due to bunches of people cutting in front of us multiple times (this seemed to
become more of a problem as people got increasingly drunk). Looking at the
tasting notes, there are no prices on the Fincastle wines, but if I recall
correctly from the sign in front of their booth, the whites were all $12 and
the reds were $14. At Fincastle, I tasted six wines as well as their sangria
and I must say that of all the wineries, I was the least satisfied, not really
liking any of their wines. From Fincastle:
Chardonnay
Dry white aged 6 months in
American oak, buttery toast and caramel up front
Cabernet Sauvignon
Full bodied dry red aged 2 years
in American oak, with cherry and black currant notes.
Cabernet Franc
Dry red aged 24 monthsin oak. Less
tannic than sauvignon with hints of anise, blackberry and black cherry.
My thoughts: Smelling this wine,
I got jamminess but that was not reflected in the taste; this wine dried my
palate a lot as it was very spicy with notes of Aleppo pepper.
Rose
Refreshing,
off-dry to semi-sweet blend of Chambourcin with an excellent balance of acidity
and tangerine fruit flavors. 3% residual sugar.
Hybrid Vigor
Semi-sweet white with a citrus
finish blended from French-American hybrids Chardonnel, Vidal Blanc and
Traminette. Bold tropical fruit flavors of pineapple and mango. 3% residual
sugar.
My thoughts: I could see myself
sipping this wine by the pool or at a steeplechase. It has a light floral nose
but actually tastes more of stone fruit.
Traminette
Sweet white with intense floral
aromas of honeysuckle, violets and roses. 5% residual sugar.
My thoughts: The traminette
smelled like a garden blooming in the summertime! It was very sweet, almost
like drinking pure honeysuckle nectar.
Sangria
Made with the rose and fresh
strawberries. Ask for the recipe.
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| Corn Crabcake over a bed of arugula paired with Trump Winery's Rose |
By the
time we finished up at Fincastle, we were absolutely famished and headed over
to the Bull & Bones tent to get some pulled pork sandwiches. Unfortunately,
they had just run out of the pulled pork and only had hotdogs and hamburgers
left. I turned up my nose at these options and opted to purchase a fresh corn
crabcake over a bed of arugula from Preston’s- boy, am I glad I did! The
crabcake was fantastic and complemented extremely well by the Trump Rose that I
paired it with (Brianna and I purchased a bottle of the rose). I found that by
pairing the crabcake with the rose, the arugula’s spiciness was brought out and
the ‘fishiness’ of the entire dish toned down. I may just be imagining things,
but I felt as if the rose tasted a sweeter when paired with the crabcake since
the wine was rather dry on its own. By
the time we finished eating our crabcakes, it was getting close to 5:00pm so we
decided to head over to the Horton Vineyards tent that we had seen everyone carrying
boxes around from.
The line
at Horton was so long. And when I say line, I mean mass blob of people all
elbowing each other to try to get a tasting. What was taking so long? Well,
Horton had brought
approximately twenty wines with them and was allowing people
to taste them all! No wonder the long wait. It was 4:50pm or so when we finally
got up to the front- how lucky of us! Because there were so many wines tasted,
I will only list some of my favorites:
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| Waiting in line at Horton, we were visited by the Tech Trons. Who knew there were two?! |
2012 Viognier $20
Exotic honey and tropical fruit aromas jump from the glass.
Full bodied, viscous mouthfeel
Sweet Concord (America’s Sweet Red) $12
Sleepy
Hollow Red; Highly aromatic, fruity grapey flavors, sweet crisp finish.
Wine for "Hard Times!"
My
thoughts: Super jammy on the nose and on the palate. This wine is sweet and
different than many wines that I have tried in the past (like Welch’s jelly!)
because it is made from a different species of grape vine. I purchased this
wine to enjoy in the summertime with a light meal, perhaps fish or a salad.
Freedom
(Sweet Tropical Wine) $12
Fruity
wine shows aromas of granny smith apples, peaches and mangos. Serve chilled
with hot spicy food.
My
thoughts: All I could think of when I tasted this wine was passion fruit. It
was super tropical and refreshing. I think it would be awesome with thai
food. I did not have time to smell it because we were doing what I am calling
“power tasting”, with barely 2 seconds in between wines due to the crowd.
Raspberry
Fruit Wine $12
Raspberry
with a small blend of Cabernet Franc.
Blanco
XOCO (White Chocolate Dessert Wine) $16/ 500mL
Sweet
chocolaty white wine made with Rkatsiteli, Vidal Blanc & Chocolate
essence. Chocolate covered cherries gone wild!
My thoughts: WOW!
This wine was THAT good. It really tasted like a high-quality white chocolate
such as Ghiradelli and is so unique (every other chocolate wine I have ever
tried has been red or more like gloopy adult chocolate milk). The sugar
seemed well balanced and as if it would not give me a stomachache if I wanted
to have more than 5oz. I definitely got the cherry flavor although it was
mild enough not to overpower the chocolate. I will 100% be purchasing this
wine in the future!
***This was my
favorite wine of the day because it was DELICIOUS and I loved it. I did not purchase because any of it because
a)it was fairly expensive for the
small bottle and b) as a dessert wine, it is not as versatile as other wines
(I was on a limited budget at the festival and could not get everything I
wanted to get)
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In my opinion, the $20 price tag to get in to Fork & Cork
was too steep for what was included (almost everything was paid for a la carte
inside) but I am glad that I was able to experience my wine festival and
discover Horton Vineyards- my new favorite wines! I cannot get over how awesome
all of their selections were-when it came time to purchase I could barely
decide (I opted for the Sweet Concord which is actually made out of vitis la brusca). In the future, I would
like to see more food/wine pairings- they really were separate with no
integration between booths like I was expecting there to be. I was picturing
more of a tasting with a sample of food next to the wine sort of thing. If only
I had remembered to use my $1 off a bottle of wine coupon from the program!
Note: I was unable to take thorough notes for every wine I tasted because of the speed of the pouring and number of people waiting in line behind me
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| Me (left) and Brianna right around 5:00pm- much happier than we were waiting in the first line at the beginning of the day! |
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