Today’s blog takes us farther north along I-95 toward Washington, DC.   This area used to only have a few wineries in the Fredericksburg, VA area. However, today there are several.  We stopped at three of these wineries: Hartwood, Mattaponi, and Potomac Point.

Mattaponi Winery is a throwback to the previous Virginia winery.  The winemaker/owner runs a small tasting room out of the back of her home.  She is Native American and the winery itself is named after the tribe, Mattaponi, that used to live in the area.  The tasting room is homey and decorated in Native American art.  The owner even offered free chili for anyone stopping by on the day we visited.  The big wine here is a strawberry wine made 100% from strawberries, the majority of which are grown on the property.  This wine is very sweet but very good.  It would go well with any dessert, especially chocolate or cheesecake.  The owner recommended mixing it about half and half with champagne or sparkling wine to create a strawberry sparkling.  I imagine this would be excellent. We bought a bottle back for a friend who always liked a strawberry sparkling wine.  I made the suggest to her so we will have to find out from her if she tried it.

Hartwood is also has a very cozy tasting room.  Our pourer was actually a local artist who was selling some of her paintings at the winery.  The winery offered a good variety of wines.  The Hartwood Station White was mostly Viognier (the state grape of Virginia) but combined with a Rkatsiteli grape which hails from Georgia in the former Soviet Union.  The Rappahannock Rose is primarily Chambourcin but combined with Seyval Blanc.  The Rappahannock White is a very good semisweet wine with 1% residual sugar made from Seyval Blanc and Vidal Blanc. The Merlot and 2010 Cabernet Franc are very good reds.  Here we had our first taste of the Tannat which is a varietal of grape that dates back to Roman times. It is a wine that needs time to age. Although good young, I am told that if I wait 40-60 years, it will be fantastic. I don’t think a wine can last that long in my home though.

Potomac Point is a bit more of a pretentious winery. The winery has the feel of a Napa Valley tasting room and is built in  a Mediterranean style.  The winery is dog friendly and there were several dogs enjoying the day in the enclosed courtyard.  This winery had a large selection. We liked their Norton best of all the wines available. The service was not very friendly and I wish I could have had a better experience here because the building is quite beautiful.  However, I think this one is so close to DC that it has lost its friendly feel.