Touring Wineries in Virginia

The joy of wine...

Oct 31, 2025

Warning: This post is about alcohol. If you struggle to drink with moderation or suffer from addiction, know that you are not alone. Please skip this post and join us back here next week. We’ll be waiting for you. If you need help, check out this website. May the Lord bless and strengthen you, friend.

Into The Blue is about finding joy in simple pleasures. One of those pleasures is a glass of wine in the Virginia countryside.

One of the many things at which Virginia excels is making the fermented grape. The state boasts so many quality wineries. In the northwestern region, they practically dot the landscape.

I dare say there is nothing better than to sit outside at a Shenandoah winery on a crisp fall day, sample the wines with loved ones, and take in the glorious orange, red, and yellow foliage draping the hillsides. The experience is magical, year round in fact. This is joie de vivre.

A Little Background

Virginia wine wasn’t always a thing, though. In fact, it has taken 400 years for winemaking to really take off in the Commonwealth. In the early 1600’s, the first English settlers had a go at cultivating both native and European grapes for wine but failed. Thomas Jefferson made a concerted effort in the late 1700’s at Monticello but also met with limited success. In the 1800’s, Daniel Norton hit pay dirt with his self-named Norton grape—a European-native hybrid—but the effort died with Prohibition.1

Thankfully, a new effort began in the 1970’s, and after much trial and error, Virginia’s skilled winemakers are now making a name for themselves.2 The major varietals you find there include Chardonnay, Cabernet Franc, Merlot, Vidal Blanc, and Viognier—Virginia’s signature grape. Two others that are really worth your time are Petit Manseng and Petit Verdot, lesser known French grapes that are particularly well suited to Virginia’s climate.3

Touring the Vineyards

Once you decide to give Virginia wine a try, where do you start? There are over 300 wineries from which to choose, and the quality is generally good. This means you can hardly go wrong by just visiting one nearest to wherever you have plans in the state. Check out Virginia Wine for regional maps of all the state’s wineries, plus loads of other helpful information.

That said, if you want to experience Virginia wine at its finest, the epicenter of excellence is the Charlottesville region. While internationally known wineries like Gabriele Rausse Winery and King Family Vineyards are located there, so are an unbelievable concentration of other greats. You can plan a wonderful trip following the Monticello Wine Trail through the area.

You can also just put together your own wine tour and hit multiple vineyards. Below are a few of the wineries we have visited on multi-day trips:

Shenadoah Vineyards. Located in Edinburg, this is maybe our favorite Virginia winery so far. One of the oldest active wineries in the state, it is an exceedingly pleasant place to spend an afternoon, featuring a lovely old farm setting, gorgeous views, and award-winning Cabernet Franc, Sauvignon, and Petit Verdot wines. The Rosé is also lovely.

View of the mountains from Brix & Columns

Brix & Columns Vineyards. Located in McGaheysville, this is a newer winery and just a fun place. The staff are extremely welcoming, they often have live music, and the place is super dog friendly. The setting is majestic, featuring a gorgeous brick mansion with panoramic views of the Shenandoah mountains. And lest we forget, the wine is quite good as well. We enjoyed the Petit Verdot, Cabernet Franc, and Petit Manseng.

Stone Tower Winery. We were at this winery near Leesburg recently for a get together with an amazing group of old friends. The wine and food was excellent (try the beet salad!), the scenery glorious, and best of all, the company was grand. We were taken with their Viognier Reserve, a wonderful wine with minerality and stone fruit notes.

Mountain Cove Vineyards. This winery is sadly now closed, but I mention it because it is illustrative of the wonderful surprises you can find at small, family wineries. Located in a beautiful valley near Livingston, this was a special place. We visited here a few years ago and had the time of our lives. What made the place so special was not so much the wine but the owner, a retired special forces soldier with a keen mind and a warm heart. We spent hours commiserating with him, as he shared his encyclopedic knowledge not just of winemaking but of the world. Truly it was a visit we will never forget. You never know what wonderful people you might meet at a Virginia winery!

Camping with Wine

If you are a van lifer, RVer, or camper, the Shenandoah wineries pair beautifully with a multiple day camping excursion. You can go hiking in the nearby mountain forests in the morning and relax by an outdoor fire at a winery in the afternoon. I’m not sure I can convey just how heavenly a combination this is.

Shenandoah National Park sits in the heart of this region and makes an excellent basecamp for winery excursions. If you are a member of Harvest Hosts, a network for RVers and van lifers, you can put together almost an infinite number of adventures by staying at different Virginia wineries each night. Around 40 Virginia wineries are part of the network, giving you an incredible array of options. These include some of Virginia’s top rated wineries, like Bozzo Family Vineyards in Purcelville, The Estate at White Hall Vineyard in King George, and Rivah Vineyards in Kinsale.

Give it a try sometime!

How about you?

Are you a Virginia wine aficionado? What are your favorite Virginia wines and vineyards? Please share in the comments so we can all learn and grow.

A Short Meditation

On the third day there was a wedding at Cana in Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. Jesus was also invited to the wedding with his disciples. When the wine ran out, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.” And Jesus said to her, “Woman, what does this have to do with me? My hour has not yet come.” His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.”

Now there were six stone water jars there for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. Jesus said to the servants, “Fill the jars with water.” And they filled them to the brim. And he said to them, “Now draw some out and take it to the master of the feast.” So they took it. When the master of the feast tasted the water now become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the master of the feast called the bridegroom and said to him, “Everyone serves the good wine first, and when people have drunk freely, then the poor wine. But you have kept the good wine until now.” This, the first of his signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee, and manifested his glory. And his disciples believed in him.

John 2:1-11

Jesus’ first miracle was turning water into wine to keep the party going at a wedding reception. As a premier illustration of joie de vivre, we will return to this story many times here at Into The Blue. There is so much to learn.

Today, I want to focus on just one thing. What does this miracle tell us about Jesus?

Jesus’ miracles are not party tricks. They are signs. They point us to who he is.

They reveal him to be a king, but not like the earthly kings and wannabes we know. Earthly kings make a show of serving the people, but they really only serve themselves. They are oppressors, money grabbers, and evil doers. They promise greatness and deliver desolation.

But imagine a king who goes to a wedding and doesn’t make it about himself. Imagine a king who secretly provides the finest wine for the guests to honor his mother and save the groom from humiliation. Not just enough wine to squeak by, but 180 gallons of Chateauneuf-du-Pape! He takes no credit for it, and then goes on about his business.

That is a king who rules for others, not himself. That is a king who doesn’t just provide his people what they need, he lavishes them with the best of the best. That is a king whose heart is fully and truly with his people.

But of course the sign says more about Jesus than this. He didn’t just provide the wine, he turned water into wine. He intruded upon the world we know with the power of the world beyond. That is something only the Creator of the water and the grape can do.

This sign says that Jesus is not just a king, he is the King. He is the King who, when his hour did come, poured out his blood like wine, jars filled to the brim sufficient to save billions and billions of lost souls, his people across all time and space. And not just to save them, but to lavish them with the best of the best, abundant life that has no end.

This is what John means when he tells us that at a simple wedding feast in Cana long ago, the King of Kings manifested his glory. And his disciples believed in him. Jesus invites us to do the same.

Cheers!

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