Following the Grape Trail

Two days, three wineries, one killer view.

Sunday was the South African Wine Festival at Grayhaven Winery, a celebration of all things South African. Since it's been 11 years since I've been to South Africa, the festival is like a booster shot to remind me of why - 21-hour flight aside - I fell in love with the place.

And while they can bring in the wines, food and music, there's no pretending that Gum Springs is Stellenbosch or Paarl, although Grayhaven is a charming property with the feel of a farmhouse winery, an inviting place to spend a day.

That is was such a gorgeous day only made it better to taste through wines by Man Vintner and Fairview, including the colorfully-named Goats Do Roam (and I can assure you that they really do at the winery), meeting a burly Burmese mountain dog and personable dachshund named Rigby and their people along the way.

And speaking of dogs, a lamb resembling a greyhound was turning on a spit nearby when we spread out a blanket and settled in with wine and fried oysters with Peri Peri sauce to watch the entertainment from near the crest of the hill. Down in front of the stage, loopy festival-goers were feeling the spirit and dancing, some more ably than others.

The people-watching was exceptional given that an all-day event devoted to wine is bound to produce all kinds of behavior. One drunk woman had to be led out by a muscular friend, her head hanging forward, her barely-there dress creeping higher than anyone needed to see. A woman came back from the marketplace with a bar of handcrafted soap, only to be derided by her friends for buying soap at a wine festival.

And somebody please tell me why on earth you'd bring a baby to a day devoted to drinking? As my Richmond grandmother was fond of saying, "Karen, that just don't make good sense."

Day two of wine adventuring took us to Williamsburg Winery, after a scenic drive down Route 5 - aka Plantation Row - which provided a stellar opportunity to assess the progress of the Capital Bike Trail from Richmond to Williamsburg.

With less than a week to go until the UCI Race madness hits town, it was clear that VDOT was hustling to get the last bits of the trail completed. We must have passed at least a half dozen work crews scattering grass seed, laying hay or working on fencing along the path, parts of which are still marked "closed" despite riders using other sections.

After a satisfying lunch on the patio under a wisteria-covered pergola at the winery's Gabrielle Archer Tavern and a walk around the vineyards, we opted out of a winery tour and headed straight to the tasting room, naturally outfitted to look like a colonial-era room.

Its most appealing feature was a series of woodblock print enlargements chronicling how to farm grapes for wine.

Highlights of the reserve tasting included the 2013 Wessex Hundred Petit Verdot and, naturally, the Governor's Cup-winning 2012 Adagio, their Bordeaux blend, but at $65 a bottle, not likely one I'll ever get more than a taste of.

What surprised me was how far afield some of the grapes they used came from and I don't just mean Culpeper and Charlottesville, but Washington state, too.

The winery tour group arrived in the tasting room with a verbal whip-cracking taster in charge who all but threatened to crack their knuckles with a ruler if they ruined the wine by rinsing out their glasses with water between tastings. She was not putting up with any nonsense, making us glad we'd been tasted through by a sparkling-eyed young woman with a near-constant smile and no rules.

We finished there with just enough time to get to Saude Creek Winery, a place I'd passed countless times on the way to Northern Neck destinations but never bothered to stop. The last thing I was expecting was a sleek tasting room on a hill, mainly because I thought New Kent County was flat as a board.

I guess with enough money, you can find a hill practically anywhere.

Since we got there half an hour before the winery closed, we were a bit of a surprise to the girl behind the tasting counter, but she affably welcomed us in as we marveled at the hilltop location.

"You should see the view from upstairs," she enthused. "You can see all the way to the paper mills in West Point."

For me, this was a dubious selling point since I can't abide the smell of those mills when you drive over the bridges there and although I habitually roll down my car window when I cross a bridge (no matter the season), that's the only one where the windows stay up. A native to West Point, she said she doesn't even smell it anymore. Get out while you can, honey.

But upstairs, she was right, there was a magnificent view all the way to the Pamunkey River, sparkling blue on this cloudless afternoon and far enough away that the mills' odor was a non-issue.

We tasted through the wines quickly and then scored glasses of the Pamunkey Falls white blend and the Merlot and took them to the lower deck that looked out over the treetops toward the river, but with the water view blocked by our lower elevation.

I have a t-shirt that says "Virginia is for wine lovers" and it gets comments from strangers every time I wear it. Say what you want about Virginia wine, but glasses enjoyed outside three wineries on two beautiful afternoons pretty much proves it.

But, please, leave the babies at home.