Wineries near Charlottesville VA

I read through the recent thread on Virginia wineries. We are spending a few days in Charlottesville next month. We will do wine one or two days. Looking for recs on two or three wineries worth visiting that are relatively close together.

Veritas is not too far away.

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You could do King Family, Pollak and Veritas. They’re all within 10 minutes of each other. All with very consistently good wines

Good reccos. I could not remember Pollak.

Agree as well. These are our standard stops when in the area.

Thanks. I have heard good things about Veritas.

Veritas…period. Don’t waste your time going elsewhere.

Early Mountain

The hardest part about VA wines is that they are all 3x as expensive as they comparatively ought to be. If you can get past that, you can have fun. Nice scenery, good restaurants, pretty wineries, but very mediocre and ridiculously over-priced wines. I try to like them, since I live here now, but can’t. I did recently visit a vineyard I have some hope for though. On a hillside with rocky soil. Fifth leaf, so no wine yet, but an interesting site. Mt Alto Vineyard.

King Family & Veritas

Barboursville and Gabriele Rausse

Hey, I live here! Second or third the King Family and Pollak recs. A pretty drive up Route 810 from KF you can also hit Stinson and Grace Estate, which are both worth a stop. On the other side of the county, Barboursville is also worth it. They pour a wide variety, including some interesting Italian varieties, and have a baseline of quality. I am also a big fan of Lovingston Vineyard, but that’s a long 30 minute drive south of Charlottesville.
Pretty sure everything that is going to be said about Virginia wine has been said many times in these threads. They account for almost zero of my home consumption, but many are quite good, and all of the places mentioned above are enjoyable stops with nice wine. Give me a shout if you have any questions about the area. There are a bunch of good wine shops, too.

I recognize that this is totally unresponsive to your question and weird given the purpose of this board, but if I only had a couple of days in the area, I would exhaust the historic/scenic/natural tourist opportunities and forget about the wineries. The area has so much to offer than is truly unique; the wineries (in my personal opinion) are not really in that category.

But then I am not really into wine tourism generally (went to Napa once 25 years ago and it isn’t on the top of my list for a return visit). Just a contrarian view

Sage advice counselor. At the end of the day VA wines are just not that memorable. The history on the other hand is.

Linden Vineyards in Linden, VA Linden Vineyards | Come Visit — Linden Vineyards is about 75 miles north of Charlottesville so it’s probably too far away. However, I will put Linden’s wines next to anybody’s wines in terms of quality to price. If you see any Linden wines in Charlottesville retailers or restaurants then please buy some and see for yourself. I also like Barboursville. If you are a Dave Matthews fan then you might want to check out Blenheim https://blenheimvineyards.com/. It’s been a while but when I tried the wines several years ago they were OK but were not worth the price unless you were just enjoying the moment and are a fan. As other posters have suggested, there is a lot of history in this neck of the woods but I also really enjoy the sublime beauty of the Blue Ridge mountains. I highly advise a trip to Shenandoah National Park nearby.

Michael Chaps in Monticello about 15 minutes south of C’ville. Second the recommendations for Veritas, King Family, and Barboursville. Ask for a Library tasting at B’ville. On your way to B’ville take a pilgrimage stop to Horton. Dennis Horton (RIP) was one of the founders of Virginia wine country. The portfolio is varied in quality, but like I said, it’s a pilgrimage stop. All my other potential recs would be more of a hike from C’ville.

Stinson is pretty good. West of Charlottesville (actually Crozet) and not, IMHO, overpriced as many East Coast that have drinkable wineries can be.

The easiest loop with the most places to hit is West of C’ville, doing King Family, Pollak, Veritas which are the most distributed, and fitting in Cardinal Point and Afton Mountain depending on time. Can bend along the mountains North of Crozet and do White Hall and Stinson as well. Pretty mountain driving if the leaves are still up, places to eat and in Crozet and Afton, even very good breweries along there as well (Starr Hill, Blue Mountain, Pro Re Nata) if interested.

East loop involves more driving between stops, more historic scenery. Jefferson Vineyards just past Monticello, then can head towards Blenheim (can be worth calling Gabrielle Rausse to see if they are pouring as well) going past Ash Lawn, but then you have to hump a while to get to Barboursville from here. If you take the Rt22/231 roads there are lots of historic farms along the rolling hills, and you can stop at Keswick along the way. If you want to do something with Early Mountain I think they are well worth the @30 minute drive North of town, and can hit Barboursville from there if you deviate down Rt 33, but they are a good chunk of driving in between and there aren’t as many things to see if you are trying to sightsee.

-100, simply because I know Andrew Hodson would never dump on his neighbors like that. Nor is it true.