A Million Dollar View

At my college, there were rumors that the view from one of the buildings down to the water would always be preserved because of a stipulation attached to the huge donation made by the folks for whom the building was named.  This may be total fiction, and if it is true, the donation would have been much larger than a million dollars, but as we got our of the winery assault vehicle at Chester Gap Cellars, I just had this phrase on repeat in my head.  The view is amazing.  We’re off season right now, but at the right time of year, I’m sure there’s little better than sitting on the tasting room deck sipping wine and eating lunch while staring out at the mountains that surround you.

This is a small place.  It’s family owned and operated.  The tasting room is a pretty bare bones yet functional space that they’re working on as time and money permit.  I have no problem with this.  A gorgeous space is nice, but good wines are better.  In fact, when they do get around to finishing the raw pine bar, I hope they just varnish it to preserve some of the fun wine stains that have been added to the boards.  Talk about character….  The one thing I do object to here is the tasting fee.  I don’t object to tasting fees, and I don’t mind paying them.  No one is getting rich off of my tasting fee, and I understand the need to at least try to turn a profit (or break even more often than not), but this one was a bit steep for what you get.  They have a $7 tasting fee for 5 wines.  They will give you one free tasting for each bottle bought, but still $7 seems a bit steep.  A $4 or $5 nonrefundable fee would have seemed much more sensible to me, so just be aware of this if you choose to visit.

So, the wine…..  They currently offer 3 viogniers and 2 reds, a cab franc and a merlot.  All of the wines are 2007s except for the Boisseau Vineyard viognier, which was a 2008.  It was fun to taste 3 viogniers as this is not a grape wineries typically do in multiple styles.  Their first viognier is a stainless fermented version that had a lot of floral notes with some light stone fruit flavors thrown in.  It had too much floral going on for my taste, however.  The second, the viognier reserve, seemed to be the big seller the day we were there.  It’s aged for 9 months in oak.  I have mixed reactions to oaked viogniers, and this one is no different.  It’s fine, but I wasn’t wild about it.  I preferred the Boisseau Vineyard viognier.  This is the only wine made from fruit they buy in, and it comes from one of the growers who sell to Jim Law at Linden Vineyards (apparently he doesn’t care to make viognier).  It spent more time  in the barrel than had the reserve, and it had some interesting smokey and tropical fruit notes.  The two reds were fine but not rocking my world.  They had some nice flavors, and were quite drinkable, but they weren’t particularly memorable for me (even with my own tasting notes).

All in all, this is a place I’d like to check back on in a few years.  They have nice wines and a great view.  They’re also near a lot of other wineries, so they could make a nice addition to a day trip in VA wine country.  I just hope they try to bring their tasting fee in line with what they have to offer.  More than $1 per sample is just a bit steep for me.

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The A Million Dollar View by Swirl, Sip, Snark, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.