Virgina Peaches, Apples and Wines. Oh My!

A few weekends ago Sam organized for a few people to meet up and go peach picking out in Virginia. As I am sure most of you have witness and/or heard at this point, DC's summer heat issues have been out of control this summer so we dragged ourselves out of bed early on Saturday morning to get out to the orchard. The drive out to the orchard was beautiful. Ashley and I did have to set Sam straight about "mountains" vs. "rolling hills" but once we all came to consensus we all could appreciate the rolling hills. We went to Stribling Orchard and I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to go pick peaches or apples. We had a great time and the staff at the orchard was incredibly friendly and helpful. We are already thinking about an apple picking adventure and I have some ambitions to make some apple butter!

I was surprised at how small the peach trees were. The peaches were easy to pick from my 5 foot advantage point.

Picking some peaches

 The beautiful Virginia rolling hills and view from the orchard.

My loot from the adventure. I brought home about 18 pounds of peaches for under $20! What a deal!

After picking peaches we found some shaded picnic tables and chowed down on our eclectic lunches that we packed for the day. The highlight was the childhood enjoyment of my fruit rollups that I had purchased earlier in the day.

(Ashley, Sam and Sarah- You can thank me later for posting these. And don't worry...we didn't let Ashley eat the plastic as much as she wanted to)

After lunch we decided to check out a vineyard that was just next to the orchard. Chateau O' Brien does  wine tastings for $5 and we were able to sample a variety of their wines. Their venue is very nice and they have an on-site dog who is a mascot! We all really liked their Virginia Apple Wine and purchased bottles for $20. I am sipping on some tonight!

After we finished our wine tasting there we decided to try out one more vineyard since it was a lazy Saturday, hot as can be in DC and why not, right? Luckily we had Sam with us and he remember there being a vineyard just down a dirt road and over a few rolling hills. After a non-conventional driving route we found Linden Vineyards.I am not even sure I want to write about this place because it was such a treat!

The vineyard was set just far enough off the main road that you really felt like you had "gotten away". We were warmly greeted when we came in and did another $5 wine tastings. These wines were really good! We all seemed to really like many of them and knew we would have a hard time picking just a few bottles to take home with us. After the normal tasting we also were allowed to taste an amazing desert wine they had that was incredibly fragrant and savory. After our tasting we were told about their membership that allowed people to come and sit on their beautiful veranda that overlooks the vineyards and drink wine and dine on cheese and bread. We lucked out and due to the heat, the normal membership requirements (the purchase of a case of wine) was waived and we selected a bottle of wine to split and enjoy outside. We also ordered two portions of fresh chevre with some fresh baked baguette.

I can not rave enough about Linden Vineyards. We had such a great afternoon enjoy each other company, the wine and cheese and a day away from the busy DC world. I would have to say that we are still thinking about the case membership so we can go again and have another wonderful afternoon.