Prince Michel Winery

For Valentines Day weekend, Lucas and I took a mini-vacation to Charlottesville, VA. We stayed at the most WONDERFUL and RELAXING Inn, just a few miles off of Route 29 near downtown (UVA). Cedar Spring Inn & Spa has contemporary styled rooms, with luxurious tubs, fire places, and other accommodations. The owners are absolutely fabulous and are EXTREMELY helpful when it comes to recommendations of restaurants, things to do, and of course, wineries. I just couldn't say enough about this place, you should visit and love it too!

Okay, back to the point. During our "weekend away", we visited 4 wineries on the Virginia Wine trail (we were in the Central VA region of the Virginia wine trail in case you follow it). We visited Prince Michel on our way down (it's about 1 hour away from Northern, VA and 35 miles North of Charlottesville). This is our favorite winery to date- we are actually "wine of the month" club members. I wanted to share with you some of our most memorable tastings from this winery. I will revisit the other 3 wineries from this weekend in another Post at another time, so keep checking back.

A little background/side note on our experience with Prince Michel Winery - I graduated from Liberty University, and spent many years traveling from home in DC to Lynchburg, VA. I always passed Prince Michel and always swore that I would visit when I turned 21. We actually visited Prince Michel's Old Town Alexandria store  (before it was closed) for a tasting in the summer of 2009 before ever venturing out to Leon, VA.

Prince Michel produces both Prince Michel and Rapidan River Wines (all Virginia wines). They have one numerous awards for their wines, some I will highlight below.

Dry Rose: Neither myself or Lucas are big white wine or champagne drinkers, and we tend to navigate away from the sweet wines, however, this Rose is does not have typical characteristics of a traditional Rose (it is not a sweet wine). This wine is made 100% of merlot and is a dry wine made in stainless steel. It has the essence of strawberry and apricot and has a very smooth finish. This year, the Dry Rose one the Silver at the American Fine Wines Competition. I would highly recommend this wine.


Symbius: One of our favorites. I am a big fan of Meritages, or blended wines. This wine consists of 48% Merlot, 30% Cabernet Sauvignon, 12% Cabernet Franc and 10% of Petit Verdot. It is rich in blackberry flavors with dark chocolate notes that evolve into a tobacco finish. It is aged 21 months in french and american barrels. Symbius has won multiple Gold and Bronze awards, and is definitely one of my "must haves" when I visit the winery.


Petit Verdot: This wine is usually a blending wine (exactly as it sounds, it is meant for blending, not necessarily sipping). 2007 happened to be a great year for this wine and produced a deep, rich red wine, full-bodied in character with a very smooth finish. It has a full palate of berries. With this wine, however, once it's gone, it's gone.


Merlot: This is a classic merlot with about 3% shiraz. It is made with over 1 year of Oak Aging. It has a soft, silky texture. You can really taste the ripe berry flavors that linger on your palate and you can smell the berry aromas. Again, this wine is an award winning wine and very easy to drink.

For all you sweet/fruit wine lovers: While we don't always enjoy the sweet, dessert wines, we do love fruit wine. We were first turned on to fruit wines in 2007 upon our first visit to Peaks of Otter Winery, where they make most of their wines with a variety of fruits (and no, grape is not the common fruit at that winery). I will go into more detail about them at another time.
Okay so fruit wines at Prince Michel. They have raspberry, peach, and blackberry fruit wines here. Our favorite by far was the blackberry. The blackberry actually won the Best of Class, Best of Bridal AND the Platinum award for 2011 at the New World International Wine Competition. This is a dark, rich wine and actually tastes as though you are drinking blackberries. Best served chilled, it is composed of cab franc, cab sauvignon, and merlot.

And the deliciousness does not stop there. I would encourage you (for those of you close enough), visit the winery or you can visit/buy online! I have found a few of their wines at the Total Wine in Fairfax, VA, but am not sure if you are not local if you will find it there.