I recently spent a rare weekend on the East Coast, and an even rarer day in Virginia.
My friend Carole and I started the day at 8 am (a time of day I don’t often experience on a Saturday, no matter what time zone I’m in) with a trip to the Fairfax Community Farmer’s Market.
A cool, brisk wind tested the tent stands, sweeping away umbrellas, bags, and even a few dollar bills, and reminding everyone that Fall is just around the corner. But despite the wind and slight chill in the air, the produce on display was in top form and sales were equally brisk.
My original reason for going to the market was for bacon from Baker Farms, a North Carolina based company that sells their pork products at the Fairfax Market every weekend. A colleague of mine who lives in Fairfax had purchased a package of their bacon for me last year, and it was so delicious that I’d been looking forward to visiting the market myself to pick up some more of the bacon and to check out the other pork products that Baker Farms has to offer.
But I was also tempted by all of the goods other vendors were selling, and I walked away with far more than bacon and a couple pork chops. After filling up a dozen or so bags with fresh fruits, vegetables, chorizos, bread, eggs, and cheese, we finally loaded up the car and headed over to my friend Judy’s house.
The trip to Virginia for the Fairfax market was enjoyable and productive, but the real reason I spent the day in Virginia was for a wine tour with a group of girlfriends. This has been a year of “Big-O” birthdays – friends of mine have turned 30, 40, and 50 in the last few months. So we decided to celebrate with a limo tour of three Virginia wineries.
Our first stop was at Rappahannock Cellars. Our tasting host, Nick, was a delightful young fellow who helped us get off to a great start. Of particular note is a Meritage wine we tasted. It was described as being good “with a grilled bacon wrapped filet mignon topped with bleu cheese.” So it’s not surprising that this is one of the bottles I walked away with…
Our next stop was at the Oasis Winery. We were less impressed with this particular winery, so we did a quick tasting and moved on.
At this point we were starting to get hungry, so we had our driver take us to the Griffin Tavern in Flint Hills, which was recommended by our friend Nick from Rappahannock. Despite its obscure location somewhat off the beaten track, the Griffin is probably better in atmosphere, service, and food quality than most any of the pubs in the DC metro area. All of the food was delightful and fulfilling, most notably the bacon cheeseburger. And not only was the staff at the Griffin very friendly and fun to interact with, but we also met a few locals who were kind enough to give us some winery recommendations. Since our stop at Oasis had been disappointing, we decided to put ourselves in the hands of locals rather than relying on our original itinerary for our third and final stop. This turned out to be a very good decision.
After lining our stomachs with delicious pub food and a few pints of beer, we headed to our last winery – Chester Gap Cellars.
The wines at Chester Gap were nice, but the best thing about this winery is its location at the top of a mountain. The winery is currently in the process of building an indoor tasting room, so in the meantime their “tasting room” is actually a tent that overlooks the surrounding countryside. The views were breathtaking, and by this point in the day the temperature was absolutely perfect. It was a great place to enjoy our last glass of wine and end the day.
At that point we were all filling a bit tipsy and most of us had had our fill, so we piled into the limo and headed back to our urban dwellings. All in all, it turned out to be a really pleasant day in the Commonwealth.