Travelling Lore

If you prefer beer over wine, Charlottesville also has plenty of local breweries to visit. Most, if not all, offer flights or taster sizes of their brews and most also have food to purchase.  In addition to C'Ville-ian Brewery in downtown, we stopped at Blue Mountain Brewery for lunch where we tried every beer they had on tap.  My favorite by far was their Dark Hollow, a bourbon barrel-aged imperial stout. Blue Mountain Brewery also had amazing  pizza.  I am a hardcore pizza fan (it's basically my favorite food on this planet) and was incredibly happy with "The Real Deal" pie that I ordered.  This easily lasted us three meals: lunch for myself, dinner in the hotel room watching the NFL playoffs, and lunch on the drive back home. My fiance, on the other hand, ordered their delicious "Creole Cuban Press" sandwich, which was composed of slow-roasted Virginia pulled pork, shaved ham, pepper jack cheese, and pickles. He graciously let me try a bi...

After visiting Barboursville Vineyards we drove a very short five minutes to neighboring  Horton Vineyards .  Though not as old as Barboursville, Horton Vineyards has been producing for over two decades.  In 1988 entrepreneur Dennis Horton and business partner Joan Bieda acquired 55 acres of land to start the vineyard.  The first crop was harvested in 1991 and vinted at Montdomaine Winery in Charlottesville, where Dennis eventually took over management and produced a Chardonnay and Cabernet under that label.  The tasting room we now know as Horton Cellars came into being in 1993, which saw its first crush that year.  The following year additional acreage began producing Bordeaux, Rhone Valley, Portuguese, and Spanish varietals. Horton Vineyards also has an extensive list of wines from which to taste.  Once there you can choose eight from the list to taste, if my memory serves me correctly.  Pictured here is their 2013 Pinotage, which is a...

I mentioned earlier that we visited quite a handful of wineries near Charlottesville, eight in total when all was said and done!  We visited Barboursville Vineyards bright and early on our way to downtown Charlottesville. When we arrived we were greeted by an expansive view of their precious vines set atop ever so slightly rolling hills.  Gianni Zonin, heir to a family wine enterprise that spans over many of Italy's wine-producing regions, acquired the historic property in 1976 with the idea of creating a vineyard.  As such, Barboursville is one of Virginia's oldest vineyards, with Mountain Cove Vineyards  (45 minutes south of downtown Charlottesville) being the oldest.  Barboursville Vineyards also happens to be one of the most award-winning wineries in the state. Upon entering the tasting room we were intrigued by the layout of wine tasting stations where, at each station, we tried three to four wines at a time before rotating to the next counte...

While Charlottesville, Virginia is known for its plethora of wineries, they also have an abundance of local breweries.   C'Ville-ian Brewing Company , conveniently located in walkable downtown Charlottesville, is a veteran owned and operated nanobrewery.  Its clever name incorporates a play on the word "civilian" as well as the tendency of locals to shorten Charlottesville to "C-ville."  The owner Steve, who we met while enjoying a couple of pints, started the company in his garage in 2013.  Now, after securing a storefront, Steve remains motivated to create an inviting environment where people can enjoy delicious beer that was brewed with local ingredients.  Sitting in C'Ville-ian's cozy bar is like being draped in a U.S. flag: the bar is built with red wood, the walls are white, and there are 50 light bulbs hanging overhead, not to mention there's a gigantic U.S. flag hanging on the wall to seal the deal. The moment we walked into C...

Just recently my fiance and I took advantage of a holiday weekend and decided to make our way down to Charlottesville, Virginia, best known as the home of Thomas Jefferson and James Monroe. If you've never been to Charlottesville wine country and you're looking for some recommendations, then I highly recommend King Family Vineyards .   Out of the eight or so wineries we visited during our stay, King Family Vineyards was my favorite.  It happened to be snowing lightly the morning we went, but looking past the grey day it was still easy to see how lovely and expansive the winery's grounds are. The vineyard sits at the base of the Blue Ridge Mountains.  Originally a farm, the King family purchased the property in 1996 and in 1998 began leasing land for a vineyard.  Initially the plan was to sell the grapes, but the family decided to make some wine from some of the grapes in order to learn more about the process.  So in 2000 the King family introduced 480 cases...

Happy New Year everyone!  I hope everyone brought in 2016 with fun, good cheer, and--most importantly--good friends!  My fiance and I hosted a small, low key party in our home with some good friends.  This was our third year hosting and, like the two years before, we had a new signature drink ready for our guests.  This year we went with a White Cranberry Martini , which was very delicious and subsequently a big hit! With 2015 now behind us, I wanted to take a look at my top 5 most read 2015 travel adventures on my blog.  I started this blog as a creative outlet, and that's still how I'll continue to run it, but I'm pretty happy with my stats considering I use a free blogging platform.  Most of my readers are, unsurprisingly, based in the United States; but I was surprised to see that a fair amount of my readers hail from Brunei followed by Germany and the United Kingdom.  I've discovered a ton of travel bloggers along the way and I really enj...

Shifting to some local tourism, in June some friends, my boyfriend, and I stopped by Crooked Run Brewing .  They're a farmhouse nano brewery located in Leesburg, Virgnia.  They've carved a small niche for themselves in northern VA, but even though they don't have a dozen beers on tap like some of the other local breweries, the beers that they do have pack a punch on your palate. When we visited a couple months ago they had five beers on tap: Supernatural, an imperial hibiscus saison; Summer Night, a raspberry dark saison; Nitro Red Kolsch, an Irish red/German kolsch; We Stand Together, a grapefruit zest saison; and Valhalla, an imperial golden stout. I genuinely enjoyed all five of their beers on tap and I think it's become one of my favorite breweries, if not my favorite.  Valhalla, which was aged on coffee beans packed some impressive flavors.  At the time it was an experimental small batch brew, so growler fills weren't allowed.  However, it wa...

Yesterday a few of us started out this holiday weekend in style by enjoying the wonderful scenery that Virginia offers.  We went for a short bike ride along the W&OD trail in Purcellville, VA.  I like to call it my annual bike ride since I really only get on a bike about once a year after much persuasion from everyone around me.  I'm still not so great at stopping (though am better than the last time!), but at least I can bike in a relatively straight line now! ;) Afterwards we stopped by Monk's , a local BBQ restaurant.  Conveniently located one block from the end of the W&OD trail in Purcellville, it offers great food, a number of BBQ sauces to try, and local beer on tap.  I ordered the pulled pork, which has been my go-to lately, and their delicious baked beans.  As for the beer (because what's BBQ without beer?!), I opted for Adroit Theory's Hibiscus Saison; it had a beautiful red tint and was perfect for a post bike ride drink. Next w...

After living in Virginia for nearly 20 years, it seemed absurd that I'd never visited Richmond, the state's capital.  So when a couple of friends presented us with the opportunity to join them for a weekend of exploring Richmond, what can I say...it was an offer we couldn't refuse! We arrived on a Friday evening and enjoyed some local BBQ from Buz and Ned's Real Barbecue .  I was so, so happy that they had fried okra, which is difficult to find in Northern Virginia.  We ended our night at Capital Alehouse where we enjoyed a couple rounds of beer. On Saturday morning we found ourselves on Cary Street, which is an area in Richmond with lots of cute restaurants and independent shops.  There we stopped in at the Can Can Brasserie for breakfast. I ordered the classic Quiche Lorraine and a refreshing side salad.  Their entire menu looked delicious, though, and it was a challenge to choose just one thing for breakfast. I must say, though, I thought their d...