Loose Leaf Notes

There were 19 wines to sample and I liked them all. I tried not to get drunk and started thinking that maybe I should have eaten more hors d’oeuvres when we were only half-way through the red wines. By the time we were on to the whites, I had struck up conversations with the guests to my left and right and asked the woman doing the wine tasting whose name I thought was Cher if she had a last name, or only one like the singer. “It’s Sherry. Like the drink,” she said and we all laughed.

After the tasting the whole idea of the Château Morrisette Holiday Open House with music (Scott Perry), hors d’oeuvres by the winery’s new chef, samples of flavored oils and sauces to dip crackers into, and cool stuff to buy seemed a lot more fun than it did when I first arrived. Of course I gravitated right to the toys. There were Marbles and Pick-up sticks, along with wine related gifts, and lots of stuff for dogs (with the black dog being the Winery’s mascot).

I wanted to buy some wine but didn’t think it was worth standing in either one of the two lines of over a dozen people for one or two bottles, especially considering that I live ten minutes from the Winery and can buy the same wines anytime at the Harvest Moon Food Store, where I shop.

I felt compelled to stop two women who were walking around with wine glasses on cords around their necks and ask them where I might (jokingly) “get one of those.” I struck up a conversation with a man in a wheel chair who also had a wine glass around his neck (which seemed more relevant in his case). “It’s a lazy man’s glass holder,” he joked. I learned that his black dog was not the black dog of the winery fame but a service dog named Guinness. The man was sitting next to a table of information about the Saint Francis of Assisi Service Dog Foundation. Some of the proceeds from some of the wine sales go to benefit the group. Others benefit The Blue Ridge Parkway. There were bottles of wine with Virginia Tech Hokie labels. Our Dog Blue, a Riesling in a cobalt blue bottle, is there best selling wine.

Before leaving, I stopped at the Château Morrisette Restaurant because I wanted to see if they had a tree up or any other Christmas decorations. It was nearly four o’clock and the lunch crowd had waned to nearly nothing. I was the only one in line and was able to buy a couple of bottles of wine after all. The woman at the counter who rang me up remembered my son Josh, who worked at the winery during his high school years.

Talk about a designated driver. Outside the restaurant a group of wine club members were getting ready to leave the grounds in a limousine and were taking a final head count.
~ Read more about our local winery HERE. Another Chateau Morrisette post is HERE.