I started out my Fork and Cork
experience at 8 AM when I arrived bright eyed and bushy tailed as a volunteer
to set up for the event. As a volunteer
you get a free ticket and as a college student I was into that idea. There are no pictures of this part,
considering it is mostly manual labor and it rained the majority of the time
and I didn’t want the camera to get wet.
Luckily the day turned beautiful
by the time the festival actually started.
The rain cleared up and my frozen hands had a chance to thaw out as the
weather warmed up. I was pretty excited
to realize once I got there that the vineyards were all Virginia wines. They tend to get a bad rap so I had never
bought a bottle for myself. But I would
not be able to give them a chance!
The lines were pretty long so I
only had a chance to go to a few winery booths.
The first was Mountain Rose Vineyards, which ended up being my favorite
winery of all the ones I tasted. My
favorite of their selection was, surprisingly, the Pardee red. I tend to not like red wine but this had no
heat. It was pretty sweet but not overly
so and still had complexity rather than solely focusing around the
sweetness. I definitely would be
interested in buying a bottle. The last
wine, Pocahontas Red, we tried was unlike any I’ve ever had before. It is a dessert wine, but I think it would
only be good alone. It smelled like
chocolate and cherries and actually tasted the exact same. Plus the viscocity was so thick it felt like
I was drinking chocolate syrup (ok, mybe an exaggeration, but you get the
point.) It was nice to try, but I think after a few sips I would not want to drink
much more because it is so overly sweet.
At this point I ran into some
friends and swiped some of the Sangria they had bought, which was so delicious. I had previously had boxed Sangria in Ghana
which tasted like… alcohol and juice. I
was not a fan, but this was so different than that. I will definitely have to try to make it at
home for myself.
The second winery I will document
is Starburn Winery. They offered two
white, one rose and two reds. I am
always intrigued by roses because they are so rare and for some reason I always
expect them to be floral. This one was
called Bull’s Blush and it was pretty delicious, but not floral. It was light and fruity, with tones of
tropical fruit. Also, it was oaked,
which I was a little weary about but it surprisingly created a very nice
complement to the taste. This is saying
a lot because usually I hate oak! One
big thing I learned from this festival, but trying so many different, unique
wines in such a short period of time is that I really like wines that include
talk of tropical fruits and citrus in their description. The smell, of course, is delicious and sets
me up to like them even more.
The last winery was Veritas
Vineyards and Winery. Remember how I
told you the last wine had tolerable oak?
I regret that I can’t say the same about these. We started with a Chardonnay which was
heavily oaked and it tasted too harsh and buttery for my preferences. But considering it is modeled after the Old
World style, I wonder how different I would have felt about it if I had had
some cheese or food to pair with it. I
liked their Viognier 2011. It was crisp
and clean, while still have depth, although included barrel fermentation. Perhaps my favorite part of this wine was the
pleseant lingering finish. Once again, I usually don’t like too much of a
lingering finish because they tend to get hot, but I didn’t mind this one and
it surprised me.
I finished the afternoon up with
delicious chicken from Sake House and sat in on Boyer’s interesting lecture about the
democratization of wine and how it was no longer just for fancy people. Even college students are drinking it! In fact I mentioned to my mother that I had
visited the festival today and she was extremely intrigued that people my age
were interested in wine at all, which I found interesting.
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