Girls' Weekend in Charlottesville, VA

(Monticello)

Last week I had the great pleasure of spending a couple of days with an old junior high school friend of mine. We were inseparable for a while there and then she went to a different high school and we lost track of each other. Fast forward thirty years or so and enter Facebook. We hooked up, met for lunch when I was living in Virginia and quickly made plans for a longer visit once I got settled in Tennessee.

I got up early Wednesday morning and drove the six hours to Charlottesville, VA., for two fun-filled days of laughing and non-stop talking! Charlottesville is a great town. The home of the University of Virginia, it’s scenic, historic and full of fun things to do. We stayed at the Omni Charlottesville, which sits at the top of a few blocks of pedestrian shopping, eating and drinking places. We spent Wednesday afternoon eating, drinking, strolling and catching up.

(Jefferson's grave marker)

Thursday morning we had an excellent breakfast at the hotel and then loaded up and drove to Monticello, the home of Thomas Jefferson. It’s a beautiful place. If you ever get the chance to see it, do! Jefferson was an amazing, inventive man and the best of him is there at Monticello. We took the house tour and strolled around the gardens. Then we walked down the hill, past Jefferson’s grave and ended up at the visitor’s center. No cheesy gift shop at Monticello, the store is filled with books, dishes, furniture and plants from the garden. It’s a great stop in its own right.

Unbeknownst to many, Virginia produces some really excellent wines. My friend and I decided to spend our afternoon on a winery crawl. Although we had discovered that we have a lot in common, we now know we are complete opposites as far as wine is concerned! We started with the Jefferson Vineyard, located just a mile from Monticello. Their wines are also for sale in the gift shop at Monticello and I’m sure their lovely bottles are designed to make nice gifts. I bought an ’07 Meritage, my friend bought the Chardonnay.

(Blenheim's winemaker Kristy Harmon)

Our next stop was Blenheim Vineyards, owned by Dave Matthews of the Dave Matthews Band. Although we went there because we like the band and thought it was neat that he owned a vineyard, we ended up being very impressed with the wine. We were even more impressed by the fact that the winemaker at Blenheim is a woman. Our hats were off to her! Their store/tasting facility is a really neat timber-frame structure. You enter on the second floor, which is inset with large glass panels that enable you to look down into the winery below. My friend loved the Chardonnay, Viognier and the Rose. Their sold out ’08 Petit Verdot was so amazing that I joined their wine club just to get a bottle of it.

(wine tasting apparatus at Kluge)

Kluge Vineyard was our next stop. Badly in need of sustenance by then, we ordered three small plates to eat in the garden area after our tasting. One of the things I love about wine tastings is the opportunity to visit with the winery people. If you’ve never been to one, generally you stand at a counter while an employee pours you successive tastes of whatever they have to offer. These people are usually knowledgeable and enthusiastic about their product and, while you taste, they tell you about their wines and answer your questions.

Kluge was completely different. We paid our wine tasting fee (usually about $5) and were presented with an odd, science-lab series of plastic beakers in a rack; each one containing a sample of Kluge wine, along with a sheet of paper with the wine's description. Upon questioning, the young man who presented us with this apparatus admitted that he knew about the wines. He didn’t appear too busy so I told him that I didn’t want to read the handout and really preferred the usual pithy banter. He laughingly obliged and we ended up enjoying ourselves. Although I didn’t much care for the tasting protocol, I did like their ’02 New World Red and bought two bottles. My friend preferred the ’05 and took that home.

(Sugarleaf Vineyard)

Our next stop was closed so our final stop was Sugarleaf Vineyards. It was about 6:00 pm by that time and the door was locked when we got there. Luckily, as we were walking back to our car, someone rode down on an ATV, let us in and gave us a tasting. I walked away with my only Cabernet Sauvignon of the day.

Back in our room, we decided to go out on the square for a dinner of sushi and a fairly early night. We woke up Friday morning and headed our separate ways. I’m all about re-inventing and re-defining ourselves in mid-life but there is something really comforting and relaxing about spending a couple of days with someone who was a big part of my crazy past.

I’ve invited her to Houston in January. The Virginia winter ought to be wearing her down by then and I hope she’ll hop on a plane and let me show her a Texas good time!