Winery Visit - Chateau Morrisette

On Friday, March 23rd, 2012, five of my friends and I went to Chateau Morrisette in Floyd, Virginia for a tour of the winery and a wine tasting. This was my first time visiting a winery and let's just say it had an interesting start. Instead of printing off the directions on the website, I decided to rely on my GPS as I always do. Unfortunately, the GPS took us a back roads way which lead us around mountains and 15mph turns for about half the trip. This caused us to be late to the 11:00 tasting, but the other car full of friends went on without us and we were able to catch up to them in the tour.

Chateau Morrisette

Chateau Morrisette has a beautiful location off of the Blue Ridge Parkway. The 13-acre property has a restaurant, wine tasting room, wine-making facilities, and a gift shop with a lot of cute wine items. I was surprised to learn that not many of the grapes they use are actually grown on-site. The majority of them are shipped from grape growers throughout the region. The grapes are picked as soon as they reach the appropriate sugar level and then shipped to Chateau Morisette where they are destemmed and crushed. After the grapes are crushed using the machinery located to the side of the building, they are moved inside where the wine is processed, fermented, stored, barreled, and eventually bottled.

Steel containers is where the wine-making magic happens! Some of the containers are so cold that frost forms on the outside of them!

The oak barrels where the wine is aged often adds flavors to the wine itself.

Before heading to the tasting room!

After the wine is aged in barrels, it's ready to be bottled. Every bottle at Chateau Morrisette is bottled using a cork, which as we learned in class isn't the best form of enclosure as screw tops are better at keeping bacteria out. At the end of our tour, our tour guide Roberto led us to the tasting room where we participated in a sampling of 12 wines (was supposed to only be 10 wines but Roberto liked us). We started off with dry wines and worked our way to sweet wines:

• 2010 Chardonnay: This wine was not oaky at all as it is aged in stainless steel. Featured aromas of green apple, citrus, and melon ans tastes of citrus, pear, and honey. Very silky and creamy in texture. Would pair well with crab, lobster, and other seafood.
• Independence: I very much enjoyed this wine. A unique blend of Traminette, Vidal Blanc, Riesling (60%), and Chardonnay. Absolutely refreshing and packed with lively fruit such as grapefruit and melon. Roberto recommended pairing it with a cheese and fruit platter, tuna salad sandwich, and for those who like spicy food (me!) jack and jalapeno pepper cheese,
• 2010 Chambourcin: Roberto gave us a unique experience by letting us taste a bottle that had been opened for 3 days and letting us taste a freshly opened bottle. The 3-day old bottle was rough on the palate and coarse. However, the freshly opened bottle was smooth and enjoyable. The aroma in itself was much stronger and featured plums and berries. This wine was silky and soft, not rough and coarse.
• 2010 Cabernet Franc: Dark berry and delicate cedar aromas. Plum and black cherry flavors with a velvety texture. Lingering finish with notes of cocoa. Roberto recommended pairing it with mushroom dishes or chocolate. I was not a big fan of this wine.
• 2009 Cabernet Sauvignon: This wine was not on the list, but we had a Cab fan with us so Roberto let us try it. I enjoyed this wine; it was multi-leveled and complex. Rich blackberry aromas and dominant taste of plum and cherry again. A little taste of spice and cedar as well. An enjoyable wine.
• 2008 Petit Verdot: A bolder wine but more delicate in flavor as described by Roberto. Traces of vanilla emerging from rich, dark fruit aromas, Hint of mocha in the finish. Would pair well with steak or sharp cheeses.
• The Black Dog: Another wine that was not on the tasting this, but Roberto let us try. I actually had this wine a few weeks ago but it was under the name Hokie Red. A wonderful combination of Chambourcin, Cabernet, Merlot and Petit Verdot. Very smooth red wine with a medium body. Would pair well with light hors d-oeuvres.
• 2010 Vidal Blanc: Refreshing flavors of citrus and apples augmented my grapefruit, melon, and floral aromas. Medium-bodied and smooth with an aromatic finish. Roberto recommended pairing it with chicken picatta.
• Blushing Dog: I was a very big fan of this wine. Very sweet blush wine made from a blend of Vidal Blanc and Traminette, with a little touch of Chambourcin. Floral aroma and a crisp acidity. Would be a nice wine to drink outside on the porch on a day with good weather. Roberto recommended pairing it with spicy food.
• Sweet Mountain Laurel: Not a fan of this wine at all. The aromas turned me off immediately. Gave off scents of diesel and tar. Too acidic for me as well. Roberto referred to this wine as "Welches on steroids."
• 2010 Frosty Dog: Loved this wine! I've never tasted an ice wine before so I was excited to try it. Aromas of citrus, apple, and orange accentuated by lively acidity. The finish features honey, pear, and some mango flavors. Roberto said this wine can be used to replace a dessert and is also delicious drizzled on cheesecake.
• Blackberry Wine: This is the wine I ended up leaving with. Sweet and smooth packed with vibrant blackberry flavored. Has a beautiful color and little pieces of blackberry floating inside of it. Tastes good lightly chilled with grilled or spicy food

During the tasting Roberto recommended what he calls the "3 Sip Pour" - The first sip is used to rinse out the previous wine, the second sip introduces the new flavor, and the third sip drives it home and cements it.

I was truly blown away by what a wonderful time I had at Chateau Morrisette. Our tour guide, Roberto, was beyond great and provided us with a wealth of information as well as kept us entertained with his jokes. One of my favorite things he said that day was, "Sometimes people ask me how many days will a wine stay good once it's open. And I say I don't understand the question." A true believer in finishing the bottle the day you open it. My kind of guy :)

Us and Roberto

I have already recommended to many of my friends to make a trip out to Chateau Morrisette. It's definitely worth the little bit of a drive and I couldn't have been any more impressed!

Geography of Wine students

The mascot dog - Lucky