Last weekend over Memorial Day, we took a hike up the mountain to our winery. I've talked about this winery and this hike....and the other one...the Hike to the Top of the World... a lot since we got back. But I wanted to let you know....it is the truth. The winery is there and the I WAS on the Top of the World. You'll see.
Let me first say, my friend Nancy (from VA) and I hiked for about 4 hours, some on the Appalachain Trail and then came DOWN onto Flat Top Mountain. You have a 270 degree view...west down into the Shenandoah Valley, north towards some lower mountains and then east into Bacon Hollow and towards Stanardsville, VA and as far as the eye can see. It's magnificent! There's even an observatory up there. So now I have a WINERY and and OBSERVATORY! Wow!
Lucy came out...I should say, she followed us out to our place. She doesn't remember it....she was just 4 when we left. But, haha! she couldn't BELIEVE that the road up to the old homestead was a state road. To that city girl, the road looked more like a PATH. Yep, it's true, even I have a hard time believing we drove our car up and down that mountain every day. We hiked with Lucy up to our winery and did the wine tasting again. Before, we were only thinking red, and the wines didn't taste so good and they were expensive too. Oh dear! It's bad to have a winery in your back yard.....well, practically....it's actually a 45 minute hike if you're pushing it....and some parts are really, really steep....but still, it stinks to have a winery RIGHT THERE and to not like the wine. 
But hooray, even though we're usually not so much into white wines, their Chardonney is pretty fine. Yippee! So a bottle of wine, some goat cheese with dill and garlic, sitting on a sky deck overlooking vinyards and miles of valley on a weather-perfect day, well, it doesn't get much better than that.
But hooray, even though we're usually not so much into white wines, their Chardonney is pretty fine. Yippee! So a bottle of wine, some goat cheese with dill and garlic, sitting on a sky deck overlooking vinyards and miles of valley on a weather-perfect day, well, it doesn't get much better than that.Oh, I had a story that I e-mailed out after the first time I went up to my winery that I'll include here cause it's sort of funny and helps illustrate the general area:
Woohoo, I "got wine" from MY vineyard and I need to read you the label. Firstly, though, let me say that in our neck of the woods in VA there are two very, very common names....Morris and Shifflet. In fact, it is quite common to read in the local paper that Crystal Morris married Elmer Morris and thus became Crystal Morris Morris or Lucille Shifflet becomes Lucille Shifflet Shifflet. In fact, the man we get our lumber from, Junior Morris...a really neat local man who is quite rich in broken down equipment and wonderful stories, is married to his wife Dorris, so it is quite conceivable that she is Dorris Morris Morris.
Anyway, areas around there are known as "hollows" and our place is in Shifflet Hollow. Our postmistress, Mrs. Loving...from the time when the mail was delivered more locally....picking up the mail through the open front window of her house from the closed-in porch... Mrs. Loving had to give us this little tidbit of info. When we first met Mrs. Loving, she informed us right off the bat to watch out for those Morrises. Those Morrisses had married each other so many times that they practically had NO noses left a'tall!! And over in Bacon Hollow, things were even more interesting....
I read in the paper that one of the Shifflets had had a car crash because someone in the backseat of the car had shot the DRIVER!.....and for dissing his dogs! Oh geez....you get the drift here....
OK, I'm getting to it.....MY winery says on the label of it's Pinot Grigio:
"Stone Mounain Vineyards is located in an area known as Bacon Hollow. While
Stone Mountain Vineyards is not the first to make alcoholic beverages in Bacon
Hollow, we are the first to do it legally."
HA!
We knew one of the old moonshiners....not personally, but whenever you were in a hurry....and the roads are very narrow and curvy... you'd end up behind Elmer Shifflet's rusted out old Chevy pickup wobbling and weaving down the road at about 20 mph. We all figured that if Elmer ever crashed, there'd be no damage cause he was never going fast enough....and someone was always stuck behind him to help him out.
A link to my vineyard: www.stonemountainvineyards.com . Check out the view from the "tasting room". Anyway, that's where my wine is from. A wine with a story.
Anyway, areas around there are known as "hollows" and our place is in Shifflet Hollow. Our postmistress, Mrs. Loving...from the time when the mail was delivered more locally....picking up the mail through the open front window of her house from the closed-in porch... Mrs. Loving had to give us this little tidbit of info. When we first met Mrs. Loving, she informed us right off the bat to watch out for those Morrises. Those Morrisses had married each other so many times that they practically had NO noses left a'tall!! And over in Bacon Hollow, things were even more interesting....
I read in the paper that one of the Shifflets had had a car crash because someone in the backseat of the car had shot the DRIVER!.....and for dissing his dogs! Oh geez....you get the drift here....
OK, I'm getting to it.....MY winery says on the label of it's Pinot Grigio:
"Stone Mounain Vineyards is located in an area known as Bacon Hollow. While
Stone Mountain Vineyards is not the first to make alcoholic beverages in Bacon
Hollow, we are the first to do it legally."
HA!
We knew one of the old moonshiners....not personally, but whenever you were in a hurry....and the roads are very narrow and curvy... you'd end up behind Elmer Shifflet's rusted out old Chevy pickup wobbling and weaving down the road at about 20 mph. We all figured that if Elmer ever crashed, there'd be no damage cause he was never going fast enough....and someone was always stuck behind him to help him out.
A link to my vineyard: www.stonemountainvineyards.com . Check out the view from the "tasting room". Anyway, that's where my wine is from. A wine with a story.
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