Chateau Morrisette

Last weekend Angela rounded up a small gang of people to go off to wine country! No, not Napa Valley, but South West Virginia. Nestled outside of Floyd County and along the Blue Ridge Parkway lies the Chateau Morrisette. Angela, me, Bic, Kris, Mary, and David arrived at a luxurious expanse of vineyards and timber framed buildings. The tour was short but great, there being many curious wine tasters there. One group of more wealthy students had rented out the Hooptie Ride from Blacksburg for the event, apparently in the anticipation of consuming much wine. The tour wandered through a gigantic timber framed building with hundreds of oak barrels for the dry wines and large steel canisters for the whites. The theme is a black lab, which was the owner’s only companion when he started the winery 25 years ago. Several labs later, the current Black lab wanders around the Chateau and apparently aids in the wine process by tasting reds to help decide when they are done. After the tour, we paid 5 dollars to try over a dozen wines at a nice bar within a gift shop. Attending a wine tasting greatly aided us decide which our favorites are. Angela loves sweet whites while I really enjoyed a buttery chardonnay. Bic liked an odd red, “Chambourcin”, which had a rather leathery taste. The last wine we tasted was an expensive desert wine. This was their “Frosty Dog,” and it reminded me of drinking spiked sugar water, but I can see the appeal. After the tasting we wandered around the property and gift shop, which was conveniently placed next to the tasting area. It was a very pleasant atmosphere, as you could buy a bottle of wine, have it uncorked, and enjoy it on a patio overlooking an expanse of mountains. There was an expensive restaurant attached to the Chateau, where there was a 130 dollar “Titanic” themed dinner later that evening. After enough site seeing we headed down the Blue Ridge Parkway to catch some Spring overlooks.