Virginia: Benoni's Dead and I Don't Care, I've Had 28 Wines

The second day of our Washington D.C. tour, we left the city with our friends Frank and Lindsay for the beautiful Virginia countryside. I had no idea there were so many vineyards nearby so this day was a total surprise. I thought we’d be visiting a crap ton of monuments but instead we tasted a crap ton of wines. Seriously…the most tastings I’ve ever done and that’s after living for a month in Mendoza, Argentina.

Our first stop was Pearmund Cellars. We pulled up to the counter to inquire about the tasting which went something like this…

Us: Hi, we’d like to do a tasting.

Nice girl: Ok, it’s $10

Us: Ok, cool. How many will we be tasting?

Her: Sixteen

Us: Um, what? Ha ha! I thought you said sixteen. How many of your sixteen wines?

Her: Yes, you’ll taste all sixteen.

Us: Shut up.

So we did. We tasted all sixteen wines which is totally ridiculous in my opinion, however, also in fact awesome at the same time. That sentence was also ridiculous.

The next winery was a sister winery just a ways down the road called The Winery at La Grange. It has this super old refurbished house sitting amongst the vines where you can do some tastings. The house was actually being patched up after the earthquake a week prior. They got rocked pretty good.

While they didn’t serve a whopping sixteen, they did offer up an impressive twelve tastings for just $10. About half way through our tasting we got to one of their wines called Benoni’s Dead But Still Red which spurred the inevitable question about whether this place was haunted. It was of course haunted by many ghosts including this Benoni character. The staff kindly pours a glass of wine for Benoni everyday and sets it on the mantel. Dusty was smart enough to ask if Benoni minded having a photo taken of his glass so as to not piss off a potentially angry spirit. He did not mind, though.

Despite Frank’s request not to, we made several weak attempts to get Benoni to join us for our tasting. Sadly he did not make an appearance as he sometimes does. During one bachelorette party, he popped a wine topper out of a bottle when one of the girls questioned his existence. When she continued to question still, he popped three more toppers out. He did not provide us with such evidence.

I think Frank and Lindsay probably had 3 more wineries on their list for us to visit. However, after 28 tastings at the first two wineries we were slowing down. So, we finished up our tour at Barrel Oak Winery. This one had a wonderful patio with an awesome view out over fields of vines.

Dusty and I quit tastings as we could hardly tell the difference any longer. (Not that we really can in the first place!) Frank and Lindsay forged on and reported back that it was a total waste. Their tongues were done for. We still enjoyed the great views, a picnic and a good game of cornhole. I have conveniently forgotten who won.

Details

Pearmund Cellars
6190 Georgetown Road
Broad Run, VA 20137
(540) 347-3475

The Winery at La Grange
4970 Antioch Road
Haymarket, VA 20169
(703) 753-9360

Barrel Oak Winery
3623 Grove Lane
Delaplane, Virginia 20144
(540) 364-6402