Overnight Date

Brad and I hit the road just after lunch on Saturday. We drove straight to James River Cellars (http://www.jamesrivercellars.com/), they were hosting a Wine Festival with 3 other wineries present. It was a beautiful afternoon, a little warm, but still gorgeous. We tasted out way through all 4 wineries and ended up sampling a few glasses of the Peachy Pear Sangria from Hill Top Berry Farm & Winery, http://www.hilltopberrywine.com/ which by the way, has very unique tasting wines, true to its name, all the wines are fruit inspired. I believe we ended up buying a Pear Table Wine that just to die for. And while we are mostly a White Wine family, we really enjoyed the Workboat Red wine from Belle Mount Vineyards http://bellemount.com/, and since we purchased two bottles we got their recipe for Sangria, yum. And last but not least, our favorite wine from Cooper Vineyards http://www.coopervineyards.com/ was the Rhapsody. In total we purchased 9 bottles of wine, ended up drinking one there and brought the other 8 home with us.

Recommended Wines:

Cooper Vineyards:

Rhapsody, a sweet White

Sweet Louisa, which is actually a chilled sweet Red

Noche, which is a chocolate desert wine, also the vineyards best seller

Vida

Coopertage Blanc, which is a blend of Chardonnay and Viognier, its a teeny bit oaky for me, but I still really enjoyed it.

*I wish they would have had their Viognier to taste, but they didn't...guess that means we will have to take a trip to Louisa, Virginia to get in a taste.

Belle Mount Vineyards

Workboat Red, great for Sangria

Chesapeake Light, very cool bottle, yummy White Wine...they were sold out already so we weren't able to purchase this one.

Hill Top Berry Farm & Winery

Little Heeler, a sweet blueberry wine

Pear Table Wine

Pyment, concord grapes and honey

Rockfish River Cyser, apple and honey blend

We enjoyed a bottle of wine on the picnic table and listened to the Kevin A Kelley Band http://www.myspace.com/kevinakelley, it was a wonderful afternoon to just sit around and enjoy the sunshine, music and wine. It was a very family/pet friendly event, so next year we are looking forward to bringing the whole family. I have to point out, there was a 205lb Mastiff there named Ortiz, he was HUGE.

After the wine, we headed over to Thai Gourmet for some yummy Thai food before checking into Virginia Crossings Resort. It was our second stay at Virginia Crossings, I surprised Brad and took him away for a night for his Birthday, which was also the first time away from Olivia back in 2007, so it was fitting this was our first night away from Avery (by choice, not including work trips)

We rested in the room for a few hours, watched some TV and then decided we REALLY wanted some Movie Theater Popcorn, so we checked out the local Regal Cinema to see what was playing, turns out there was nothing out that we both were dying to see, so we did something we have never done before...we went to the theater, bought a Medium Popcorn and then left...we brought it back to our room and watched a Hard Knocks on HBO and were both sound asleep by 9:45pm. Wild and Crazy Kids...

Brad and I were up by 7:45am, so much for really sleeping in. Too bad we woke up STARVING and didn't have Brunch Reservations until 11am. Urg. It was horrible, we had to raid the vending machines for a Pre-Brunch Snack. And turns out Brunch was a little bit of a let down. So let me lay the ground work here...we have been to this Brunch 2-3 times before...it was always set up in the Foyer of one of the buildings, several tables...an impressive spread. Well, Wyndham took over Virginia Crossings (the Resort) last Fall sometime...and from there, it all went down hill. I would have been okay with a smaller, less impressive spread, but when you take away the selection and downsize the Brunch big time one would expect the price to come down a bit too...not so much. And Brad ordered two eggs over easy...and they didn't have any toast...who doesn't have toast when you are serving breakfast food? Seriously People! And then our desserts were FROZEN, so after mentioning that to our server we ended up with 25% off our bill. Too bad we still won't be going back there...The Jefferson here we come.