Apples and Grapes

Amanda, in all her food dorkiness and endless love of Fall, organized an un-official gathering of the FDPs to partake in her yearly tradition of Apple Picking.... followed by wine tasting of course! Since it was an un-official gathering we allowed some boys to come along- mostly so they could reach the very high up apples!

Last Sunday, we all piled into two cars and headed down to the "country-side" of Virginia. Only about an hour away, in Markham, VA (exit 18 off of Rt 66) is where we made our first stop. Because it was a weekend day and the weather was incredibly gorgeous, Stribling Orchard was completely packed with others who were out enjoying picking and picnicing. After waiting patiently in a line of cars we got our Orchard maps and bags and drove on in. We settled upon a few favorite varieties- Red Delicious, Golden Delicious and Rome. Unfortunately, we had missed the Macintosh apples. We strolled up and down the rows, tasting and picking the perfect apples all while breathing in the fresh Fall air.

Before heading to any vineyards, we spread out a blanket to re-fuel our bellies before filling them with fermented juice. (What can we say? We're responsible!) Our picnic spread was quite eclectic with goat cheeses from a local farm called Firefly, baguette, a bag of Sunchips and one (yes one) sandwich from the Italian Store in Arlington. This was all washed down with a bottle of Meritage from Unicorn Winery in Virginia, which was consumed out of make-shift plastic bottles turned into wine glasses. Not only are we responsible, but we're crafty too! I think the Pepsi plastic bottle really brought out the aromas of the wine....

Since we were throroughly embracing this much needed relax time, we decided to park ourselves at a winery for the rest of the afternoon so we weren't feeling rushed. Not too far away was Rappahannock Cellars, where we met up with Amanda's dad who was heading back from Lynchburg. All 8 of us now, went inside to begin our second fruit consumption of the day- grape juice! Jeff, the man behind the tasting bar, was extremely friendly and walked us through our tasting selections. They offered two different flights- one was predominately white wines and one was predominately red, although each list did have some of both. Combined, we tasted everything from their Viognier to Chardonnay to Meritage to their Late Harvest Vidal. The two stand-outs for us were the Glenway Chardonnay and the Claret. We got a bottle of each and retired outside on the deck to soak up the sun, the vineyards, good wine and good friends.

This un-official gathering was officially relaxing and turned out to be a very fruitful day!