Roaming Virginia

Just before the 4th of July holiday, the 2009 Jefferson Vineyards’ Chardonnay was featured on a Today Show segment on local food and wine pairings.  They matched the Chardonnay with some local Virginia ham which sounds like the perfect summer picnic. YUM!

I wish the chef hadn’t rushed through the segment.  He was speaking so fast that you couldn’t understand half of his factoids.  However, still cool to see some local wine on national television.  Congrats Jefferson Vineyards!

(hat tip to The Other 46 where I discovered this video)

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

As I’ve mentioned on occasion here, I’m planning a wedding, which means that I’m reading lots of great wedding blogs for inspiration.  I came across this beautiful wedding held in Independence, Virginia on the bride’s family farm on Style Me Pretty and just had to share.  I loved the natural setting and all the decorative touches that blend so perfectly with it.  Plus the bride’s dress is to die for!  Look at the way the fabric moves in all the photos.  The way the train sweeps is amazing. I want to reach out and touch it.

If I was having an outdoor wedding this is what I would want it to look like.  WOW!

*Photos by Cunningham Photo Artists and displayed on Style Me Pretty*

Are you as into Virginia Wine as I am?  Then you might want to consider attending the Drink Local Wine Conference in Loudoun,VA on April 24-26.   Registration opened yesterday and it is only $65 for the weekend. I looked at the schedule and they’ve got some interesting panels set up.  Based on the Twitter buzz, it looks like it will also be  a great opportunity to meet other people passionate about Virginia Wine.

My dilemma is that it is the same weekend as the Foxfield Races, which I’ve been attending for the last 10 years.  What to do on a (hopefully) lovely spring day?  Drink wine in a field while watching horses with my friends or learn about wine and potentially meet some new friends?  Please share thoughts in the comments.

As you read this  post, I’m doing my Pre-Cana marriage preparation retreat which I’ve affectionately dubbed “Catholic Camp”.   This means I get to spend my Valentine’s Day weekend learning key marriage skills like  meeting the emotional needs of men and natural family planning.  While this can be construed as romantic in a way (You know, the whole building skills to help my marriage last a lifetime part, not so much on the natural family planning), what I’d really rather be doing is enjoying a nice massage with my fiance and then sipping some hot tea, curled up with a good book.

Where would my perfect Valentine’s Day fantasy weekend occur?  Naturally, at the Homestead Resort in Hot Springs, VA.  I’ve been to the Homestead once before with my family and I absolutely loved it there.  I would love to spend a romantic weekend there with Scott sometime  (hint, hint for next year sweetie).

The best part about the Homestead is….wait for it…how homey it feels.  While that might seem like an obvious statement, I think it is pretty impressive for a large hotel and resort like the Homestead to feel “homey”.  In fact, I’m not sure I’ve every stayed in a hotel before that you could apply that adjective to.  Throughout the resort, there are a ton of little nooks to read a book, play a game of chess or just people watch from an Adirondack rocking chair.  It is sublime for relaxation and I haven’t even mentioned the spa yet ;-).

My other favorite things about the Homestead are:

• The Spa: This spa is first class and you can hang out in there as long as you want on a day that you have a treatment booked.  They have these great spa shoes that massage your feet and raspberry iced tea for you to enjoy between treatments.
• The bowling alley: How cool is it to have a private bowling alley? It’s a great place to roll your best gutter balls without tons of on-lookers and play in a smoke-free environment.
• Dressing up for Dinner: This practice seems to have died out years ago, but it’s still going in the main dining room at the Homestead.   There are other eating options that don’t require dressing up, but I find this really quaint and fun.
• Nature Trails:  There are several great hiking trails around the resort which make for great exercise after lazing around the spa all morning.

What is your favorite romantic getaway spot in Virginia?  Anyone have any good V-Day plans to share?

Back to marriage prep for me.   Next up, Modern Myths on Marriage and Money.  Fun Stuff :-).

For all my fashionista readers, my friend Courtney recently launched a blog all about the Richmond fashion and beauty scene called Cobblestone Couture.  Courtney is always stylish and is the perfect person to report on #rva fashion.  Subscribe to her blog when you get a chance; I just did :-).

This is one of my Quick Restaurant reviews.  Check out this post for more information on my review format.

Just the Facts: Blue Talon Bistro 420 Prince George Street Williamsburg, VA 23185 | (757)476-BLUE (2583) http://bluetalonbistro.com/front.html

Snap Judgment: Love it

Value: Good.  Entrees are $20-$30.

Two Sentence Summary: French comfort food is the specialty of the house with French classics like cassoulet and Coq au Vin mixed in with more modern fare.  We liked it so much that we strongly considered going back there two nights in a row, which I think is a pretty big compliment when you are only in town two nights.

Food: We loved everything that we got at Blue Talon.  I got roast chicken which was moist and juicy.  It came with mashed potatoes that were to die for and we got an order of Mac and Cheese which was equally delicious.  I wish I wasn’t too full when dessert came around because I read great things about the desserts at Blue Talon. If you can’t make it to Williamsburg anytime soon, no worries because Blue Talon Bistro puts some of their recipes on their website. http://bluetalonbistro.com/recipes.html so you can try them at home.

Service: The service at Blue Talon was pretty good.  I didn’t think it stood out as exemplary, but our waiter was fairly attentive.  They give you a bottle of water for your table which I love since it means water refills whenever you like.

Mood: The bistro has a quaint atmosphere that makes you feel like you are in France with bright yellow walls, a cute tiled floor and ceramic roosters throughout. The details of the French Country look are carried right through to your plate which is delivered with mini Staub cockettes filled with your sides.  The bistro had a casual feel, but was still upscale enough that you could see yourself celebrating a special occasion there.

Other Opinions: I was looking for a local review from the Williamsburg or Tidewater papers, but couldn’t find any so check out the Yelp reviews and an old review from the Washington Post’s Tom Sietsema.

Yelp

Washington Post Review

You may have heard of a little snow storm that hit the DC area this weekend….The Blizzard of 2010, the Snowpocalypse, Snowmaggedon. But whatever you call it, I was snowed in Friday night and Saturday.   Best way to spend a snowy weekend in my opinion*?  Curled up with a good book (currently reading The Long Tail) and a bottle of Virginia wine.  For the wine, I chose Hillsborough’s 2006 Garnet.    Scott and I picked up this bottle when we visited some Loudoun wineries back in September and after drinking it last night I really wish I’d bought more than one bottle.

The Garnet is a Bordeaux style blend with Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet France and Petit Verdot.  It is a big wine with a deep burgundy color and a full body.  It shocked my palate at first and I didn’t think that I liked it, but after a few sips I loved it’s bold fruity flavor.  I’m really bad at picking out what those fruits are, but the label says that it has flavors of violets, plum and dark cherries.  It would go great with a nice steak or pork dinner or simply an evening snowed-in with your sweetie.

*Second best way to spend a snowy weekend has to be this Dupont Circle Snowball Fight, but I was too lazy to venture out there yesterday.

A Life Sentence

One of the exciting things that has been keeping me away from the blog, is that I’m planning a wedding!  Yep, that’s right, my boyfriend Scott and I got engaged on October 17, 2009 in Colonial Williamsburg. Here’s how it went down:

Scott wanted to go away for a long weekend and thought it might be fun to go to Williamsburg since it had been many years since either of us had been there and it was a place that we’d never been together. We definitely did not pick a great weekend weather-wise though.  It was chilly for October and there was a light, misty rain almost the entire weekend.

I noticed that Scott kept wanting to go on a lot of walks considering how gross it was outside.  We had a lovely dinner on Friday night at Blue Talon Bistro and he wanted to go on a walk afterward.   We strolled through the farmers market on Saturday morning to pick out food for a picnic later that day. We had a picnic lunch at Williamsburg Winery and walked through the grape vines.  We even walked through the William and Mary Campus in the dark!  Needless to say by the end of Saturday, I was over the walks in rain.  Little did I know that this entire time, he had been looking for a quiet moment and a nice spot to propose.  Luckily, the day wasn’t over yet!

That night, we went to a Tavern in Colonial Williamsburg and had a few beers and some dinner.  It was quite charming with

Scott and I a few minutes before the proposal

the hostesses and servers all dressed up in their period garb and musicians coming around to the table to entertain you.  It had the added benefit of being inside and therefore warm and dry! However, we still had one more stop for the evening.

Around 9:30, we left the Tavern to go back to the Blue Talon Bistro to have dessert.  As we were walking back through the streets of Colonial Williamsburg, Scott got down on one knee and asked me to be his wife.  I said something along the lines of , “Yes, absolutely, of course I will!” and gave him a huge hug and a long kiss.  Then the police came driving along and spotlighted us kissing in the middle of the street.  Apparently, making out is frowned upon in Colonial Williamsburg. :-)  We then quickly continued our stroll to the restaurant where we had several glasses of champagne to toast our newly betrothed selves.

After taking a bit of time to enjoy it, I excitedly called my parents, brothers and sisters and my best friends and probably popped one of Scott’s eardrums with all the high-pitched squealing. In contrast, he called his parents and said something like “the deed is done”. haha

1709 or 2009?

So now Williamsburg is my new favorite place in Virginia.  We barely scratched the surface of things to do there, but here are a few tips for you if you decide to visit Williamsburg:

• Eat at the Blue Talon Bistro.  Our meal was so delicious on Friday night that we almost went back again for dinner on Saturday.
• Visit Busch Gardens on a “school day” to beat the crowds (rainy weather doesn’t hurt either).  We were able to ride all the roller coasters at least twice.
• The newest roller coaster at Busch Garden’s the Griffon is awesome!  It has amazing views of the James River on the ride up and then plunges nearly straight down after building suspense by hanging you at the top of the plunge for 5 or 10 seconds.
• Williamsburg Winery is really crowded and not as charming as some other vineyards in Virginia.  The reserve tasting and tour seemed like it might be a bit better, but you have to decide if it is worth the extra money.
• If you are into beer, check out Williamsburg AleWerks.  The staff there really knows their stuff and gave an incredibly detailed tour of the brewery before letting us taste a lot of beer.
• Make reservations for hotels and restaurants in advance.  Scott made ours a few weeks out and found that a lot was booked due to a festival of some kind happening in the area.
• Be warned that the nightlife in Williamsburg is pretty lame.  There isn’t much to do after 10pm at least that we found.
• Stroll through the streets of Colonial Williamsburg at night.  It is really romantic and makes you feel like you’ve stepped back in time.

Hello!  Hope your 2010 is off to a wonderful start.

I’ve been a bad blogger.  I’ve neglected Roaming Virginia for four months now.  Between work and my personal life, things have been busy, exciting, fun and included lots of time away from home, which has left me with less time to blog. I will try to fill you in on the highlights in the next few posts.

But enough with the excuses.  I will do my very best to update more frequently.  However, my posts may look a little different.  I’ll keep some great Virginia content coming your way, but I’m going to try writing about some other topics as well to see if that helps keep the posts flowing on a more regular basis.  It’s just an experiment, but expect to see a few different kinds of posts here on Roaming Virginia that reflect more of my thoughts or activities that don’t necessarily involve VA or travel.  Perhaps I’ll rename the blog eventually if a certain topic seems to be sticking, but for now I’m just going to try to write something!

In honor of Virginia Wine Month and the weekly Twitter lovefest #FollowFriday, I wanted to share with you some bloggers who write about Virginia Wine that I read regularly.  Some of these bloggers  write exclusively about Virginia wine and others write about Virginia wine on occasion, but all of them have great content that I find interesting as I try to learn more about wine and plan trips to local wineries.

My Virginia Vine Spot - Denzel is a regular on the Virginia Wine trail and he writes almost exclusively about Virginia vineyards, wines and events.  You can find him on Twitter @myvinespot.

Virginia Wine Time - Virginia Wine Time also covers Virginia wineries with in-depth reviews of many vineyards in the state.  The blog is written by two Virginians, Paul and Warren. You can find them on Twitter @vawinetime

Anything Wine- Anything Wine is written by John Witherspoon, a wine store owner in Richmond, VA.  He writes about all kinds of wines, but does extensively cover Virginia Wine.  He’s on Twitter @vcuspoon

Swirl Sip and Snark - I just discovered this wine blog recently.  This couple, VaWine Diva and Grape Envy Guy give  no holds barred reviews of all the Virginia Wineries.  As hinted at in the title, there’s lots of snark :-).  As far as I can tell, there is no Twitter handle for this blog.

Drink What You Like- Drink What You Like is a blog about all types of wine, but Frank does extensively cover Virginia Wines and wine events.  He can be found on Twitter @DrinkWhatULike

The Other 46 - The Other 46 is a wine blog about wines for the 46 other states outside of the most popular wine growing states of California, Oregon, Washington and New York.  Since Virginia is the 5th largest wine producing state that means he writes a lot about Virginia wine. Brian is a native Virginian living in FL and can be found on Twitter @TheOther46

VinoTrip -VinoTrip adds a unique perspective to my blogroll as Gary covers Maryland and Virginia wineries.  Perfect for those of you looking for a bit about Virginia Wine and to learn something new about Maryland wineries.  VinoTrip has not jumped on the Twitter bandwagon ;-).

Wine Compass - The Wine Compass blog covers Virginia wineries and wine events along with wine from other regions.  Isabel recently wrote a few posts about beer in Virginia.  There is no Twitter handle linked to her blog.

Who am I missing?  Any Virginia Wine bloggers that you read that didn’t make this list?