Today we had our Spring Banquet for Pi Sigma Epsilon, my coed business frat, at Beliveau Estate near Tech! Our Banquet is kind of like Formals for social frats/sororities. We can bring a date, get to have a nice dinner, take a lot of pictures, and then do superlative awards for all the brothers!
Beliveau is a small winery and bed & breakfast that also grows lavender! They have a great selection of wine, often on the sweeter side, and they've only been open 2 years. They've won lots of awards for Western VA and Blue Ridge Country though and we had a lot of fun! Since today was also Fork and Cork in Blacksburg, a festival for local restaurants and wineries to do tastings, Beliveau was almost empty, just our group and the owner and chef. Joyce Beliveau and her husband, Yvan own the estate and he makes the wine. Joyce actually welcomed us when we got there and was our host/bartender for the tasting. She was really nice, gave great descriptions for any level of wine consumer, and was eager to discuss our opinions and answer questions. We discussed oaking and which grapes are imported (like Zinfandel from California) and got to try 7 wines for $5, even some of their nicer Reserve labels.
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| Panorama of Beliveau Estate |
Joyce gave us a copy of their tasting list and told us which wines we were trying as she poured, giving us some descriptions but also saying that we should try to see what we pick up on our own without reading the tasting notes from the list first. As we were tasting, we also walked around outside before the sun set to take some pictures and looked around the winery, which had a nice open barn feel with lofted areas and huge doors to the patio.
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| Tasting List |
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| White Wines |
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| Red Wines |
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| Reserve Wine List |
I don't remember everything we tasted, but I know we had Destiny 2012 and Portal 2012 from the Reserve list. Destiny was nice to start with, and Portal was one of the last ones we tried, but the peppery spice from that was crazy. I've never had a wine that popped like Portal, alternating multiple times between light fruit and intense spice on the tongue. It was incredibly distinct and exciting. One of the brothers also bought a bottle of Afternoon Delight, so I got to try that.
For the whites, I think we tried them all except for Discovery, which I ended up buying a bottle of and really enjoying. Everyone really liked Lover's Quest because it was so sweet, but I actually really enjoyed Reflection 2012, especially after recently trying a Gewurztraminer.
I also think we tried Sweet Surrender under the reds, that I really liked. I don't often drink reds because of the dry, bitter qualities that often come up, but this had none of those. It's name is very accurate and I loved the blend. Plenty of flavor and sugar, but not overwhelming! Also, for one of the reds, Joyce had an aerator spout on the bottle as she poured, so I asked about it because I hadn't seen that specific kind. She mentioned that she had only opened the wine an hour ago, so the aerator would help open it up. I think some of the brothers who didn't know how it worked found it really interesting!
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| A couple of brothers at the tasting with Joyce Beliveau |
Then we had a delicious dinner with a Salad, Chicken Cordon Bleu, Signature Cheesy Potatoes, & Sautéed Snap Peas and Triple Chocolate Cake with Cherry Reduction! Definitely one of the best meals I've had at school and the wine was fantastic.
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| Good Food, Good Friends |
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| My friend and I on the balcony of the winery! |
I definitely recommend visiting and trying some wines, plus the people are really nice.
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