Winery Visit - Chateau Morrisette

Welcome to Chateau Morrisette!

I was extremely excited to visit a larger scale winery, as I didn't even know the first winery I visited existed.  Chateau Morrisette's winery is located in Floyd, Virginia, right off of the Blue Ridge Parkway.  From Virginia Tech, it was about an hour long drive, through beautiful country scenery.

Patrick and I outside of the Tasting Room / Shop

When we arrived, we parked between the tasting house and the restaurant.  Heading over to the main building, we were welcomed with a large display of award winning wines. We headed to the tasting bar, where we tasted a multitude of wines and got to keep a souvenir glass.  For the wine tasting, we had:

• Angel Chardonnay
• Our Dog Blue
• Blushing Dog
• Sweet Mountain Laurel
• Muscadine
• Blackberry Wine
• Apple Wine
• 2011 Dry Rose
• Liberty
• 2011 Cabernet Franc
• 2008 Merlot
• 2010 Cabernet Sauvignon
• 2009 Petit Verdot
• The Black Dog

My favorites were the Dry Rose and the Blushing Dog.  It was amazing the array of wines they offered, anything from an extremely sweet wine such as the Peach Wine or the Frosty Dog, to a run of the mill Chardonnay.

After a tasting, Chateau Morrisette tour guide Rachel took us through a quick tour of the building.  Starting at the front door we had originally entered, Rachel explained how the building was built almost completely out of recycled wood.  Some of the logs were from an old sunken ship in Seattle, and were shipped to the site to build a "green" building.

She then went in to the history of Chateau Morissette, where the story behind the dog theme is all due to Hans, a black lab originally owned by the family founding the winery.  When the family began making wine, Hans always drank wine out of a specific vat of red wine, now known as "The Black Dog".  Curious to why Hans always drank from the same vat, they moved the wine overnight, to see if Hans could find the distinct flavor.  He could.  He found that specific wine the next day.  Hans had the wine named after him, and the property has had a black lab named Hans running around ever since.

Wooden and Stainless Steel barrels

We then entered the fermentation room, where all the wine is stored in a mixture of American, Hungarian, and Stainless Steel barrels.  Wines can take on a mixture of different fermentation styles, mixing the wooden and stainless steel barrels.

Chateau Morrisette's Bottling Machine

Chateau Morrisette doesn't grow all the grapes on property; in fact, most grapes are grown other places in Virginia.  But all the grapes are fermented and bottled here in this building, making it a major central headquarters for the company.

This basically ended Rachel's tour; she said she likes to make them short and sweet.  We went back into the shop, bought our bottles of wine, and were on our way.

We actually had dinner at the on property restaurant when we were finished with the tour.  We split a bottle of Sweet Mountain Laurel, a white table wine that is popular with the winery.  This wine seemed like it would have been better suited for dessert as it was extremely sweet.  I had vegetable lasagna for dinner, and it was quite delicious.  For dessert, we split a piece of hazelnut chocolate cake.  It was a really delicious dinner, and I definitely want to come back again.