My Fork and Cork Experience

My girlfriend Kristin and I attended Fork and Cork this year for the first time. Overall it ended up being a fun experience, though the sunburn is definitely affecting my judgement today while I write this. We arrived at 11:30, in time to be close to the front of the line to get in, which was totally worth it since we were able to sample 3 wineries with practically no line.

Us waiting to get into the event (while burning)

 In total we ended up sampling from 5 of the wineries, all of which had some really great wines. It was a great chance to taste a lot of different wines from different wineries and really see how different wineries have such different styles.

Me standing in line after the lines started building.

The wineries we ended up sampling from at Fork and Cork were:

Notaviva Vineyards

Ramulose Ridge Vineyards

Peaks of Otter Winery (Had the most unique wines I tasted)

Hill Top Berry Farm & Winery (My Favorite of the Day)

Savoy-Lee Vineyards

Now onto some individual wine reviews:

1) Notaviva Vinyards  2012 "Vierzig" Blaufrankisch - $24
Winery's Review: Melancholy yet beautiful, delicate yet complex, Mozart’s “great” G-minor symphony is considered one of the supreme compositions of all time. Often interpreted as a personal revelation, the brilliance of this work was matched only by the intensity of his inner turmoil. Best paired with Wolfgang's 40^th 85% Blaufrankisch, 15% Cabernet Franc
My Review: A really solid red wine. Smooth on the pallet with some tannins that really bring the finish together. For me this would be a really great grilled steak wine.

2) Hill Top Berry Farm & Winery's Mountain Apple Wine - $14.95/Bottle - $4.00/Glass
Winery's Review: This semi-dry wine made from a blend of apple varieties is the best cheese and crackers wine! Makes great mulled wine. Pairs with pork.
My Review: Was really surprised by this wine. The apple came through really strong but wasn't overwhelming. The sweetness and acidity were a perfect match, it really reminded me of a pinot grigio I have had before. They state that it is semi-dry, though I would say it is more on the sweet side instead of the dry side in my opinion. Also it was the wine that I had with my lunch below.

3) Hill Top Berry Farm & Winery's Dragon’s Breath - $21.95/Bottle - $8.00/Glass
Winery's Review: Unique sipping wine made from hickory smoked hot peppers and honey. Slight heat with lots of flavor, this will be your new favorite cook out wine.
My Review: I thought this was really interesting, especially compared to the other pepper wine I had earlier (below). To me instead of being a chili pepper wine it more reminded me of like a green bell pepper. Not really something I enjoyed or would drink again.

4) Hill Top Berry Farm & Winery's Hunter’s Moon - $21.95/Bottle - $7.00/Glass
Winery's Review: Our Spiced Pumpkin Mead is just the trick to treat your taste buds! Slightly sweet with pumpkin pie spices, this is a great holiday wine and delicious all the time! 
My Review: My favorite wine of the day by far, mainly because I am crazy about pumpkin flavors. It was a little sweet for drinking regularly, but I think it would make an awesome dessert wine or after dinner wine. I would recommend this wine to anyone who likes pumpkin pie.

5) Peaks of Otter Winery's Kiss the Devil - $15
Winery's Review: Made from 30 varieties of peppers, including ghost, better for basting than tasting, super hot
My Review: From reading their description, I would definitely listen to their recommendation that it isn't a great taster wine (which they still served anyways). It was HOT, HOT. It actually choked me up a little bit after drinking it, like drinking a clear hot sauce. They also gave out stickers for this wine (you can see the sticker above on the left side of the picture), not sure if it was fair compensation or not.

6) Peaks of Otter Winery's  Salty Frog  Margarita - $15
Winery's Review: take a cut lime - rub on glass rim - dip rim into salt - add 2 cubes of ice-- fill glass with chilled Margarita wine and Violia!!!
My Review: Not being a fan of margaritas this really wasn't something I enjoyed, but I can appreciate the attempt. Had a strong lime taste that was identical to a stereotypical margarita, I would say anyone who is a fan of lime or margaritas would really like this wine. The woman who was pouring said she used it as a base for her margaritas, adding tequila to the wine.

 7) Peaks of Otter Winery's Chili Dawg - $15
Winery's Review: 97% apple blended with 3% chili pepper wine, tastes like a pepper jelly
My Review: I was surprised that this was based off apple wine, since it more tasted like green peppers. They served this with spray cheese, which I wasn't expecting at all. I could see where they were attempting to go with this, but like the Margarita wine, it wasn't my cup of tea.

Side Note: Even though the three wines I reviewed for Peaks of Otter winery I didn't really like, they also had 3 or 4 other fruit based wines that I enjoyed, but were a little too sweet for me. I reviewed those three because they were their most unique wines and really stood out to me the most. Their Strawberry wine was super sweet, but was strawberry in a glass in my opinion. They also had a blueberry muffin wine which was sweet, but a perfect expression of blueberry flavor, though I didn't really get any "muffin" taste.

Wine and Food Review:

After having wines from Hill Top Berry Farm & Winery's wines we decided to sit down to have lunch. I bought their Mountain Apple Wine to have with my lunch, not because I had a specific food in mind, but because it was the most drinkable of the wines I tasted at that point. Bull and Bones were set up selling food, and of course I had to get food from them since they are my favorite restaurant in Blacksburg. 

Picture of us under the dining tent

 (Why did I take a picture of us and not the food and wine? I have no idea....)

I had their pulled pork sandwich with chips and some of their house bbq sauce on the side. The pork and wine themselves really matched perfectly (which is an awesome coincidence reading the wine description from the winery's site, I can totally see their recommendation now). When adding the sauce to the pork, I thought the wine really showed itself. Though it didn't really unveil any new flavors, the acidity of the wine really complimented the thick bbq sauce. Also, the salted chips really went well with the sweetness of the wine (sweet and salty, who doesn't love that?). It ended up being a perfect match, and I would definitely like to try this again in the future.

Favorite Wine of The Day:

 If it wasn't evident from my individual wine reviews above, my favorite wine can be described in one picture:

By far my favorite wine of the day was Hill Top Berry Farm & Winery's Hunter’s Moon (as I said, I absolutely love pumpkin flavor), as evident by me purchasing a bottle of it. I plan to save this for moving home in the summer to share with my family.