Williamsburg Winery - Thursday October 14th

 

As the day was forecasted for rain, we decided to spend the day going to indoor places. Since we had never been on a tour of a winery  and there was one in Williamsburg, that was one of our stops today. It began to rain not long after we got on the road and rained pretty hard at times.

The Williamsburg Winery is Virginia's largest winery, producing over 60,000 cases of wine annually. It was established in 1985 by the Duffeler family. But when we got to the Williamsburg Winery, we found we were not the only brave souls. Our tour consisted of ourselves and 3 other couples. One from Canada, one from North Carolina, and one from South Carolina. First we watched a short film on the grape growing and winemaking.  Then a gentleman named Jack took us on our tour. We saw the barrel cellar where they have the wines that are aging in White Oak Wine Barrels. Depending on the wine, they may be in here for three months to 12 months to a few years. We saw the area production area where they do the bottling, corking, and labels. The family that started this winery believe in using real cork stoppers, not the screw off kinds or plastic corks. We also saw the wine cellar where they keep their reserve wines, and a display of wine bottles including ones that go back to colonial times. We were also shown the more modern way of making wine in large metal wine vats. The entire wine making process for both the wine barrels and the wine vats was explained to us. Then we were taken into the wine wasting room. We were to try seven different wines in all; three white,three reds (one of which was a Reserved Wine, and a dessert wine. We were given a listing off all the wines they make where we would mark the ones we were trying and rate them. We decided to purchase the reserved one we tasted, Gabriel Archer Reserved; we also purchased two we did not try .  Our wine tasting goblets were given to us as a souvenir. Kevin went to put them in the car while I shopped, in juggling while opening the door, Kevin accidentally dropped one, The tour guide was gracious in giving us another one. In addition the the three bottles of wine, we got a cork cage made of metal wire in the shape of an oak barrel.