Flying Fox Vineyard

When you have visited many tasting rooms and vineyards, you grow to appreciate the quirky and personal tasting rooms that you stumble upon. That is the tale of how we came upon Flying Fox, as we have blown by the tasting room on Route 151 on our way to Wintergreen. The Flying Fox vineyard property is really behind Veritas, but it is so small, that they opened a little tasting room that is just after you make the turns for all the other vineyards in the vicinity. It seems to have on and off hours as it really is a one or two man/woman band. On our way home from Pollak, we finally saw it and turned off (right BEFORE the sign) and parked in back. Owner, winemaker and chief bottle washer Rich Evans greeted us warmly and we launched into the tasting from this tiny, personal winery. Rich seems to have things figured out - retired, bought the farm, sold grapes for years to Veritas, self-taught the wine business and started making and bottling Flying Fox (from their weather vane).


As Rich said, "wine is a beverage, not a mission." This makes it a lot more fun - they have their entertaining Flying Fox (in a plane) label wine and their more serious label wine. Their "meritage" blend is called Trio - merlot, cab franc and petit verdot and is quite good, in fact, all were pretty good - not great, but then the prices were more reasonable. He was making room in his back room so was selling his merlot for $100/case of 12. So we bought 6 for $50 (he threw in the wine glasses so he didn't have to wash them) and went home to quaff one with some good cheese and to admire the sunset. It was a nice afternoon! Another time we will report on our visits to other Monticello Trail Vineyards.

Pollak Vineyards

As we were driving in to Wintergreen late on Christmas night, daughter spotted a new vineyard sign off Route 250, just west off I-64. We asked Don at the Devil's Backbone Brewery and he highly recommended visiting Pollak Vineyards. So we looped up to 64 and over to Crozet to try it. Pollak just opened their tasting room in May, so it is all shiny and new and in the spirit of spiffy tasting rooms designed for events and crowds, which surely will come. Like Veritas, it is similar to the major California tasting rooms, which not surprisingly is where their winemaker is from. We were impresssed by the friendly, knowledgable and generous staff pouring. We were equally impressed by the wines, offering a full array of Virginia wines, an excellent Meritage, Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Petit Verdot, Chardonnay, Pinot Gris,Viognier, and Rosé. These are clearly a cross of California meeting Virginia. An interesting tidbit is that they grow the plantings differently - tiering them higher and across one another, called ballerina trellising - thus inspiring the logo. Daughter bought the rose, husband loved the Meritage. We view this as a great find and very convenient to Charlottesville. Already the wine tours have found the place, for better or worse.