Memorial Day Weekend 2013

Long weekends are wonderful. They always pass a little too quickly, but they are a great way to get a break from work without using up lots of vacation days. The best long weekends are the ones that also have a federal holiday at the beginning or end. :)

For Memorial Day weekend, Dan and I started off with a date night at the new Alamo Drafthouse theater in One Loudoun. If you’ve never been to an Alamo theater, I highly recommend you check it out. They are a combination of a movie theater and a restaurant. You purchase tickets for specific seats (so you don’t have to show up really early for the good ones), and you can order all your food and drinks (including alcohol) directly from your seats, even during the movie!

Dan and I have been to the theater three times since it opened at the beginning of May. We love the food, the funny previews before the movie, and the friendly staff. This past Friday, we saw the newest Star Trek movie, and we had yet another great visit at the Alamo. Here’s a picture we got at the theater before the show:


On Saturday, we stopped at two different parties. The first was a very yummy crab feast at a friends’ house. The crabs were delicious, and Dan had fun scaring people with the crabs before throwing them into the cooking pot.

After the crab feast, we headed west to have dinner with my family in Martinsburg. It’s always fun getting together with my cousins. Only your cousins truly understand the kind of crazy family that you come from. LOL We seem to be getting crazier as we get older too. Heehee…

Sunday brought a beautiful sunny day, and Dan and I got to clean house and watch some episodes of Castle before heading out to a VA Wine Mafia meet up. The “godfather” of our group, Kurt, had most generously opened up his pantry and basement to share some wines before they got too old to drink. The other mafia members also brought wines and snacks to share with everyone. Dan and I brought a bottle of Fox Meadow Freezeland White to share. Mmm…




There were many favorites being passed around. Some of my favorites were a Breaux rose, Crushed Cellars Merlot and Meritage, and Berry Hill’s 2010 Petit Verdot. Kurt even broke out a few special bottles – Keswick’s 2009 Cab Sav, Clarksburg’s 2010 dessert red (from Cali), and Corcoran’s special white port.



VA Mafia meet ups are always a blast, and we enjoyed every minute spent with this fantastic group!


No weekend would be complete without spending time gardening, so Monday was spent working on our veggie garden at my dad’s house and the potted garden at our house. We started with a trip to Home Depot for mulch, insect repellant, and a couple flowers.

Our veggie garden was growing, but slowly, and the zuccinni, squash, and cucumbers were getting seriously attached by some nasty yellow striped bugs. At Bluemont nursery, a worker said he had seen the same kind of bugs that we had and gave us some repellant called Eight. It is a product that has been used for years, and part of the mix comes from the extract of crushed mums.

After weeding, applying the insect repellant, and putting down some garden mulch, our garden looked much better.



The last hours of sunlight were spent cleaning up our own backyard. We moved my little maple tree into a big half-barrel pot, put down a bunch of mulch, and did a general clean up. We even gave the puppies a bath, much to their disappointment.





Dan and I thoroughly enjoyed our Memorial Day weekend. It was a great mix of relaxing, fun, and outdoor activity. Cheers to wonderful long weekends!

Breaux Vineyards

Resting on over 100 acres of Virginia’s rolling hills, Breaux Vineyards is a beautiful location to visit on the Virginia Wine Trail. My fiancé and I recently had the privilege to be shown around the grounds by Reagan (Events Manager) and Jennifer (Director of Sales and Hospitality).

Our tour started in the barrel rooms, where we learned about Breaux’s upcoming wines. We also learned how they make their facility available to small vineyards who do not have enough room to store barrels and tanks.

Next, Reagan walked us through the large, new facility being completed on the grounds. This facility will contain extra storage and barrel rooms, special tasting rooms for Cellar Club members, and a magnificent entertainment hall, The Acadia, that is exquisite for weddings and events. As Dan and I are currently planning our own wedding, we were really able to appreciate the size, flooring, and open lighting in the event hall!

The new Cellar Club room

The entry way to the Acadia

The Acadia

The Acadia
Breaux also has other expansion plans in the near future that will create more tasting room space and event space. With the increasing flow of visitors to Breaux, I think the vineyard’s plans are really good and will help maintain the quality each visitor’s experience!

After our tour, we headed back to the tasting room for a wine tasting with Silvia, who has been a part of Breaux since its beginning. She was very personable and shared a wealth of knowledge with us as she guided us through each wine.

On multiple occasions, Silvia brought out two bottles of the same type of wine but from different years. Then, she would describe the difference between the bottles (age of the vines, changes in weather from one year to the next, or how much time it had been allowed to age) and had us taste the difference in the wine. It was extremely fascinating!

For myself, I learned that I enjoyed the certain varieties of grape from younger vines than from older vines. I also preferred grapes from hot, humid summers over grapes from hot, dry summers. Of course, not everyone liked the same things I did, and the fact that Virginia wines offer so much variety is one of my favorite characteristics about it.

Before leaving Breaux, Dan and I talked to Jennifer about geocaching, and she happily agreed to let us add Breaux Vineyards to the VA Wine Trail! We found a fun spot for the cache, and you can find the coordinates on the geocache page.

Our visit to Breaux was wonderful. Everyone in our group learned so much about the wines we were drinking and left with more knowledge and a big smile. :) A special thanks goes to Jen, Reagan, and Silvia for their outstanding hospitality!!

Four Wineries and a Cache

Recently, Dan and I got to take his cousins, Denise and Raul, for their first a wine tasting day. :)

After looking through all the places we wanted to visit, we decided on Hidden Brook, Lost Creek, Fabioli, and Breaux. Hidden Brook and Lost Creek were on the list because I had found coupons for them on Specialicious a few months ago. Dan had heard cool stories about Fabioli, and since it was close, we added it to the roster. Finally, I picked Breaux because I have tried some of their wines at Wegmans and because I heard their grounds were beautiful.

Hidden Brook Winery
At our first stop, we found the log cabin tasting room nestled on a woody plot off of Route 15. Being the first visitors of the day, the staff was very friendly and eager to tell us all about the wines, owners, and cabin. They were also interested in Dan and I’s geocaching trail and happily gave us some corks to add to the cache we hid there.

Hidden Brook offers lots of sweeter wines, which were great for our newbies and me, though they also had a nice rich red that caught Dan’s attention. We were quick to ask for bottles of Reserve White and Merlot to take home with us.

Our favorite thing about Hidden Brook was learning about their Charagrittas, which are Chardonnay margaritas. All four of us recommend getting a Charagritta when you visit!

Lost Creek Winery
Just down the road from Hidden Brook is Lost Creek Winery. What is unique about both Hidden Brook and Lost Creek is that they are owned by a father and son. The father runs Lost Creek, and the son runs Hidden Brook.

Lost Creek had a good selection of both red and white wines, and each of us found at least one wine that we really enjoyed. We also learned that Lost Creek had started the idea of Charagrittas, and we were able to try a glass of theirs, which was deliciously refreshing. I also got to talk with the manager about geocaching, and she was more than willing to let us hide a cache on our next visit. :)

While enjoying glasses of Charagritta, we sat down on the patio with some fresh bread and olive oil. The grounds at Lost Creek are beautiful! They have both outdoor and indoor seating, and even a couple open fields that would be great for picnicking. After seeing all the dogs relaxing next to their owners, I realized that they were dog-friendly, and I am looking forward to going back with my puppies soon.

Fabbioli Cellars
Our third stop lay a few miles down Route 15 at Fabioli Cellars. The tastings take place in the basement of the owner’s home, which has an outdoor patio coming off of the basement.

I knew I would like this vineyard when I learned that they offer savory and sweet food pairings with the wines. Most wineries do not offer food pairings. In fact, this is only the second winery where I have seen it as a standard practice. It is a brilliant idea though. I enjoy tasting the wine itself, but I love seeing how flavors can grow and enhance with the right pairing of food.

Another unique feature of this vineyard is their Pear in a bottle. Yes, you read that right! This vineyard also grows pear trees, and some of those delicious pears are actually grown inside of a wine bottle! It really is the coolest thing to see. The specialty pear-in-a-bottle bottle is quite expensive, but I think it would be an awesome gift to give for a big anniversary.

Before heading out, we picked up bottles of their Aperitif Pear Wine and Raspberry Merlot.

Breaux Winery
Our final stop for the day was Breaux Winery off of Route 9. As many reviews have said, the grounds at Breaux are beautiful. If you want to have a wedding at a winery, this would be your ideal setting.

The facility looked pretty busy, but we found an opening at the counter and lined up for a tasting. While there were a fair number of wines in the tastings, we were disappointed that some of the wines we had really wanted to try were not available for tasting.

The other thing that we found disappointing was our server. While most servers at VA wineries are friendly and happy to answer questions about the wine and facilities, the server we had at Breaux was very curt – he barely even told us the name of the wine he was serving!

Even though we found the service off-putting, we did pick up bottles of Meritage and Madeleines Chardonnay. We also took a few pictures around the grounds, before calling it a day and heading home.

Until Next Time…
Denise and Raul had a great time on their first VA wine tour, and they are already talking about going out again when they visit in the fall. Hurray! Dan and I also had fun. We love walking by our kitchen table and seeing all the fun wines we picked up.

If you would like to find the cache that we hid at Hidden Brook, you can find the coordinates here. I will also post when the cache for Lost Creek is published, so be sure to check back! If you do not know what geocaching is, learn about it in my previous post.

Until next time, remember, it’s wine o’clock somewhere. ;)