Best Red Wine: Ruby Trust Smuggler (Cab franc blend)

Best white wine: Guy Drew Pinot Gris

People’s choice awards: Brightstone Meadery’s “Nectar of the House”

Media’s favorite wine: Guy Drew Vineyards Pinot Gris

Barrel Oak Winery (BOW) in Delaplane has been named by Wine Enthusiast magazine as one of the top six most family-friendly wineries, not only in the U.S. but in the world!

The WE said of Barrel Oak, “Little ones are greeted with juice boxes, and fun photographs of dogs adorn the tasting room walls,” and pointed out that being dog-friendly was a natural complement to being family-friendly.

Two of the six wineries mentioned by WE were in California, one was on Long Island (Pindar), one in Western Australia, and only one was in Europe (France).

Kudos to Brian Roeder and the BOW team on this fine achievement! You can read the full article online at http://www.winemag.com/Wine-Enthusiast-Magazine/Web-2012/6-Top-Family-Friendly-Wineries/index.php#.T5cZcq-VQT0.facebook

Speaking of Facebook, Barrel Oak Winery is asking for your help; they want to reach 2000 Friends on Facebook so visit them on Facebook as well as at the winery.

The annual conference of Drink Local Wine (including its trademark “Twitter Taste-Off”) takes place tomorrow April 28th at Metro State Campus in Denver, CO.

This writer will moderate a seminar on “Colorado terroir and the challenges of high altitude viticulture”. Other seminars will explore the disconnect between the locavore food movement and the local wine scene nationwide and what can be done about it; consumer perceptions of Colorado wine, a blind taste challenge with Colorado wines, and the Nomacorc Twitter Taste-Off starting at 2PM, during which attendees can “taste and tweet” about their favorite Colorado wines.

A retail tasting of Colorado wines in Denver last night, where attendees could meet Drink Local Wine co-founders Jeff Siegel and Dave McIntyre, drew about 100 attendees according to Siegel.

Information on the conference including maps, schedules and other details can be found online at www.drinklocalwine.com.

Virginia wine blogger John Hagarty and Drink Local Wine founder Jeff Siegel both blogged about my newly released book, Beyond Jefferson’s Vines this week.

Hagarty interviewed me about the book which is on his blog, Hagarty on Wine, at http://www.hagarty-on-wine.com/OnWineBlog/?p=6035. Siegel read and reviewed the book on his “wine curmudgeon” blog, at http://www.winecurmudgeon.com/my_weblog/2012/04/book-review-beyond-jeffersons-vines-the-evolution-of-quality-wine-in-virginia.html.

I’ve also just learned that you can order Beyond Jefferson’s Vines direct from Amazon.com at less than full retail price ($19.95); if your order is large enough (total, not just of one book), you can get free shipping! Also, the book should arrive in less than a week; a couple told me while I was selling the books at the Monticello Wine Trail Festival that they had ordered the book online and had already gotten it.

Richard Leahy, longtime Virginia wine writer (and author of this blog) will personally autogrpah and sell copies of his newly released book, Beyond Jefferson’s Vines, this weekend (4/20-21) in Charlottesville.

Friday evening 4/20 he will appear from 5-7 p.m. at Wine Made Simple, a progressive and selective new wine retail store in the Townside Center (next to Shenandoah Joe’s and Zazu’s) on Ivy Road. At that time, three boutique Virginia vintners, Well Hung, Ox Eye and Democracy Vineyards will be in the store pouring their wines.

Saturday 4/21 he will have a booth at the Monticello Wine Trail Festival at the nTelos Wireless Pavilion on the Downtown Mall, from 1-6 p.m. The festival, presented by Brown’s Mercedes Benz, will feature 90 wines from 24 Monticello Wine Trail members and a variety of other vendors. From 1-2 p.m. admission is for VIP level tickets, exclusive catered lunch provided by C&O Restaurant, opportunity to sample select wines not available to general public and a chance to mingle with wine-makers. From 2-6 p.m. is general admission. For more information, visit www.monticellowinetrailfestival.com.

In related news, Jeff Siegel a k a “The Wine Curmudgeon” and co-founder of Drink Local Wine [.com], has just published a review of the book at http://www.winecurmudgeon.com/my_weblog/2012/04/book-review-beyond-jeffersons-vines-the-evolution-of-quality-wine-in-virginia.html

I was judging last week at the first blind Virginia wine tasting held by VWG Online (www.vwg-online.com) that focused on viognier and cabernet franc.

We had six viogniers and seven cabernet francs. I remarked that both the quality and diversity of the wines was impressive; the two flagship varietals of Virginia are no longer predictable or two-dimensional.

My favorite wine of the tasting was the DuCard “signature” viognier 2010. I was impressed with the fresh purity of the fruit, which had a delicate, orange blossom and tangerine character I didn’t find in the others. There was fresh bright acidity balancing a rich, clean mouth feel, which you could tell had some complexity and depth from lees contact, but nicely lacking in any oak vanillins or flavors.

I was so impressed by the stand-out character of the wine that I supposed it to be a Condrieu (since I knew one was in the tasting somewhere), the small appellation in the Northern Rhone where viognier is grown. The actual Condrieu (2006) was old and faded (as most ’06 whites would be).

I was not only pleased to see that the wine was from Virginia, but from a fairly new winery, DuCard, in Madison County near Old Rag Mountain. I’m glad proprietor Scott Eliff put the processing details on the back label: 100% estate fruit (grown very close to the Blue Ridge Mountains) that is whole-cluster pressed to avoid harsh bitter compounds, barrel fermented and aged in neutral oak “to highlight floral character.”

What surprised me most about the wine was its high alcohol, a whopping 14.9%. I seldom like drinking any white table wine with that kind of octane, but the point is that this wine didn’t show it either on the nose or the palate. I’m actually more impressed with the wine by the fact that it carries its alcohol without a high proof hound like me noticing it as a problem; in other words the wine is in balance.

Be warned though; you can easily drain a bottle of this elegant wine with a friend at a picnic, but getting on your feet again and passing a DWI test would be another matter, so approach carefully!