Virginia Wine Country celebrates Wine Month

Throughout October Virginia’s wine country will be celebrating the 20th anniversary of its annual Wine Month. Coinciding with this significant milestone, New Horizon Wines will be launched in London to import selected ‘medal-winning’ wines into the UK direct from the State.

New Horizon Wines will also offer a programme of luxury ‘wine lifestyle’ tours of Virginia, Washington, DC and the Capital Region, starting this autumn with prices from $3,500* for two persons.

An innovative tasting linked live via webcam to a Virginia winery took place for invited guests at the Institute of Directors in London on Tuesday, 30 September 2008. The event was hosted by New Horizon Wines and supported and co-sponsored by the U.S Commercial Service, FedEx, Capital Region USA and SunTrust Bank. It featured 20 wines from nine wineries across Virginia including:-

• Northern Virginia: Breaux Vineyards, Corcoran Vineyards, Philip Carter Winery, Veramar Vineyards.

• Central Virginia: Keswick Vineyards, Thibaut-Janisson, Veritas Vineyard and Winery, White Hall Vineyards,

• Chesapeake Region: Williamsburg Winery

New Horizon Wines, whose founder and CEO is a Brit and has been living in Virginia for the past 20 years, will export the ‘pick of the crop’ of Virginia wines for distribution and sale in the UK, working initially with hand-selected, family-owned wineries across Northern, Central and Chesapeake areas of the State.

This specialist company will also offer a range of personally-tailored ‘wine lifestyle’ destination tours in partnership with some of the best hotels in the world. These include Keswick Hall (an Orient-Express Hotel), Wedmore Place (a Small Luxury Hotel of the World) and Lansdowne Resort (a AAA Four Diamond award-winning hotel).

Visitors will be able to combine the sights of Washington, DC with the stunning landscape, wineries and rich heritage of Virginia. The destination tours are personally-crafted to meet the needs of individual travellers, for example:- a 2-night ‘Power-trip’ in DC combined with 5-nights in Virginia, touring wineries by private limo, enjoying gourmet dinners with winemakers and in-depth winery experiences, from $2,500* per person.

Over the past 30 years the number of wineries in Virginia has increased rapidly from just a handful to more than 130 and now ranks sixth in the nation’s wine production. A growing number of these wineries are gaining an international reputation for the excellence of their wines. Virginia, the only American region to be featured in the Travel & Leisure magazine’s ‘Wine-Lover’s Guide’, has also been named ‘One of the five up-and-coming wine regions in the world’ by its wine critic, Bruce Schoenfeld.

The spectacular autumn foliage with the breathtaking backdrop of the Blue Ridge Mountains, the verdant beauty of the Shenandoah Valley or the sparkling Chesapeake Bay is the perfect foil for participation in a wide range of grape-harvest festivals and wine events running across Virginia throughout October and November. virginiawine.org

• You can walk in Thomas Jefferson’s footsteps along the Monticello Wine Trail, which connects 22 wineries in the Charlottesville region. The trail is perhaps the ‘ultimate’ trip for wine and history lovers, with world heritage landmarks such as Monticello and Jefferson Vineyards flourishing on the very land on which the former President himself grew grapes in centuries past. Keswick Hall is ideally located for touring this fine wine area. The Keswick Club Spa even offers the Vinotherapy Regimen ‘using elements from the grape’s vine to the seed’, featuring a Pinot Noir facial mask, Shiraz face and body smoother or a grape seed oil massage. keswick.com

• Breaux Vineyards in Loudoun County celebrates Harvest Festival on 25 October with live jazz music, hayrides through the vineyard, winemaking demonstrations and clam chowder and lobster. This is one of Virginia’s premier family-owned wineries, located just an hour from Washington, DC, and produces world-class red and white wines on its 404-acre estate. Lansdowne Resort is conveniently located for visiting this winery. breauxvineyards.com

• Williamsburg Winery, the largest in Virginia, is located at the heart of Virginia’s Historic Triangle of Jamestown, Williamsburg and Yorktown, which celebrates its 400th Anniversary in 2007. The harvest runs until end October and Williamsburg Winery offers daily wine tastings, food and wine pairing dinners at the Gabriel Archer Tavern and the opportunity to stay at Wedmore Place, its elegant country hotel. williamsburgwinery.com

• Washington, DC visitors can participate in a series of public wine tours to a wide variety of Northern Virginia wineries run by the Reston Limousine company, priced at $35* per person. Pickup is conveniently arranged at the West Falls Church Metro Station, so downtown visitors can easily access the tours by taking the Metro subway. The tours feature pairings of wineries such as Veramar and Bluemont Vineyards / Corcoran and Willowcroft Farm Vineyards and Breaux and Notaviva Vineyards. restonlimo.com

*Tour prices include accommodation with some meals, winery experiences and ground transportation but exclude air travel from the UK.

**Price quoted does not include winery tasting fees.

For further information about travel to Washington, DC, Virginia or Maryland visit capitalregionusa.co.uk.