Chateau Morrisette
Chateau Morrisette is located just off the Blue Ridge Parkway in Floyd, Virginia, at little under an hour from the Virginia Tech Campus. I went with a group of friends on March 24th, and we were greeted to the beautiful grounds of the winery with a ferocious hail/thunderstorm that lasted the entire time we were there. Needless to say, the weather was just about as perfect as it could get for staying inside.
Because of the weather we were unable to do the full tour, but we did do a complete tasting with a knowledgeable sommelier who was able to tell us, at much depth, about the history of Chateau Morrisette.
The winery offers roughly ten dry wines, four off-dry wines, three sweet wines, and one fruit wine (their Blackberry Wine, which is a delicious adult fruit juice). Dry wine, of course, indicates the lack of residual sugar, and thus, those dry wines were not nearly as sweet tasting as the sweet wines--those with residual sugar. Off-dry, which was a new descriptor to me, means that the residual sugar is barely perceptible in the taste of the wine, making it more sweet to the taste than a dry wine but nothing quite as sweet as a classic rose wine.
While there we learned a little of the history and the mechanics of the winery. The winery officially began in 1978 with just a few cuttings. Over the past 30 years the winery has expanded and now has room to house about 180-190, 000 gallons of wine, with around 130,000 gallons of that being held in stainless steel. The facility is extremely beautiful and well maintained, surpassing my expectations.
I will be posting a few follow up blogs on the tastings that I did while there. If you have not visited this winery and you are in Southwest Virginia, you should do so!
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