Why you need to visit Virginia wine country

I’ve been to a lot of wine regions over the years, and many of them are lovely; it’s sort of in the nature of wine regions.

But even after all that travel, I’d be hard pressed to pick out a place that is as gorgeous as Virginia wine country during the fall. Manicured horse farms, the leaves on the vines and trees turning red and gold, the narrow winding roads that, if you like driving, are a joy to navigate (admittedly, they’re a little alarming when a bus appears around a curve and bears down on you, but whatever), the Blue Ridge Mountains in the distance — anyway, it’s a whole lot of beauty on offer.

Of course, none of that would matter much if the wines weren’t any good. Visiting a wine region that produces crappy wine doesn’t make a lot of sense, no matter how lovely it is. But, here’s the thing that most people outside of the state don’t realize: The best wineries in Virginia are making some extraordinarily impressive wines these days.

As Americans, we tend to forget that there are wine regions in the U.S. beyond California, Washington and Oregon. But wine is made in all 50 states, and in a number of the lesser-known ones (at least when it comes to wine), the quality at the top level is competitive with wines from anywhere else in the world.


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