"Special" Event - Beliveau Winery Tasting and Tour

Welcome, Ladies and Gentlemen, to the last "official" wine posting of Sir Michael Roselius of New Jersey, the First of his Name. Congrats! You've made it this far... unless you just loaded the page and this is the top post, and to you I say: start from the beginning (or else some of my references might not make sense) if you don't mind!

Beliveau Estates everybody. Just breathe it all in!*

The reason I put "official" wine posting in quotes is that my wine course at Virginia Tech is ending, and the credit I get for these posts ends today! I do hope to continue this blog; documenting my wine tastings after college and all that jazz, but this will more likely turn into a personal monologue about the greater influence wine makes on my life in the real world. I'll be sharing about all of my experiences that I have planned for the next few months, which includes my last Wine Night with my fraternity brothers this week, graduation, a trip to Vegas with Marylee's parents, a wedding, the "Great American Road Trip" that Marylee and I have planned (a 6 week trek loosely following the borders of our amazing nation), moving into an apartment in NoVa in August, a brief trip to St. Louis (maybe) with my fraternity, another wedding, my birthday, and finally settling down and starting our careers in NoVa together! So, continue if you dare, it's gunna be a wild ride, and wine will likely have its part in each of these adventures.

The room in which we did our palate-pairings

Now back to today's event: a special, spontaneous trip to Beliveau that happened only because a spot opened up as I checked the reservation website! We arrived and signed into the tasting room, and headed to a random table to find this sheet:

Details about today's wine selection

The room we tasted in was beautifully decorated, and seemed like it was versatile enough to be a wedding venue, a restaurant, or any else fancy, depending on your occasion. They even had a man playing a guitar the entire time we sat in the food-pairing room. Talk about good impressions!

Awesome guy serinading us

The wines we tasted today included a Pinot Grigio, a Chardonnay, a Cabernet Sauvignon, and a Red Concord dessert wine, and below are my notes on the tasting the wines alone:

Kaleidoscope 2012 - dry Pinot Grigio: On the nose, I faintly got apple aromas. First sip was peachy, and the midpalate had a highly acidic feel. The aftertaste was somewhat creamy.

Mystique 2012 - dry, oaked Chardonnay: The nose was slightly floral, and the first sip was strong with oak flavors. The midpalate reminded me of sourdough bread, and led into a grapefruit aftertaste.

Silhouette 2012 - dry, lightly oaked Cabernet Sauvignon: Smelled deeply like plums, and the first sip was bitter like cranberry juice. The midpalate was full of cherries, and had vanilla in the aftertaste.

Sweet Surrender 2013 - sweet red Concord wine: Nose was literally Welch's Grape Juice, and first sip sweetly confirmed it. The midpalate was raisin-y, and blended into a strawberry flavored aftertaste.

The tasting place settings before we dove in

The food pairings intended to expand our palates included lemon, apple, butter (and cracker), salt, and peppermint samples. Here are the notes for the flavor combinations:

With the Pinot Grigio, the lemon improved it's taste, while tha apple was gross. The salt took away the bite of the acidity, and the peppermint overpowered the wine flavor. The Chardonnay was more oakey with the lemon, and the apple made it taste more tannic and flat (bad). The butter was an interesting combination I somewhat liked, and the salt enhanced the tannins in an alright way. The Cabernet Sauvignon was smoother and tastier with the butter, and the salt made it fruity and more tannic. The Concord was deliciously sweeter with the apple, while the salt cancelled out the sweetness entirely. The butter was just a weird combination here.

From our food pairings, we learned the following general rules:
Lemon: represents acidic flavors, which is good for acidic wines, not so for sweeter wines.
Apple: represents sweet flavors that match sweet wines well, but not as much for acidic ones.
Butter: represents fat (cracker's only purpose here was to help scoop the butter), which helps balance tannins and brings out sweetness/complexity of big wines. This would signify steaks or other meats.
Salt: represents salty dishes, not good with acidic wines, sweet ones alright. Avoid heavy red wines.
Peppermint: represents strong flavors, so for a strond dish like lamb, you want a big heavy red wine.

My fellow Boyer friends tasting and learning like me!

After the tastings, there was a Q&A session, in which we found out a couple of interesting tidbits such as a list of grapes grown at the vineyard, ranging from a couple vitis labrusca to a couple white and many red vitis vinifera grapes, with a few hybrids in between. Also the last few years were rough for Virginia wines, as the cold winters have killed large chunks of vineyards across the region. Beliveau has been in business since 2012, with their first vines planted in 2009 (three-year-rule!). They use both barrels and chips to flavor their wines during storage, including French-medium-toast, American-medium-toast, and American-non-toast in their oak varieties. Lastly, Dell (the Head Chef of the winery's restaurant) gave this suggestion to a classmate's question: the best wines to pair with pizza, in his opinion, are Cabernet Francs or Zinfandels; their flavors are bold enough to match the wide variety of flavors and toppings available on the typical pizza, and enhance the red sauce flavors as well.

Bottles on bottles on bottles

While I didn't stick around for the second tasting experience at the bar, I did decide to pick up a bottle of the Sweet Surrender Concord Wine. After the tastings, we wandered the grounds through the gardens and gazebo, as well as looked at some of the vineyard plantings. While we only found a few small patches of vines, we knew this estate must be more massive than we could view based on how many varieties of grapes they grow!

This looked like the Bed and Breakfast advertised on the entrance sign

Overall, I'm grateful a couple spots opened up today, because this was one of the most fun surprise trips I've made in a long time! The entire winery was beautiful, even though the weather wasn't the best for picture taking... I guess that means we'll have to come back on a nicer day sometime!

Thanks for the palate expansion, we might come back for the graduation buffet!

Thanks for tagging along with us on this expedition, we hope you check back in again sometime! Here's Rosey Mike signing off, until our next little adventure... Cheers!


*Note: I stole this picture from their website; stupid Mike forgot to snag a picture of the entrance sign both while driving in AND leaving. Thanks again, Google!