Rick Adkins

This is an outstanding property and we were really happy we came up for the day. Thomas Jefferson was quite the architect (along with all his other accomplishments) and this house/grounds has a lot of innovations that you will not see in other houses of that period. Highly recommend the behind the scenes tour and get there early as you can easily spend all day there.

This is a nice but very basic winery. In general everything they do here is only aged and stainless steel. Although they do make an exception for a couple reds that have a very short oak barrel aging process. They do have a pretty nice venue made out of straw bales which is kind of unique in itself. They do tastings here, but it's only for 4 bottles when they have eight different varieties available. I will say the four we tasted were all good wines although our least favorite was a Cabernet Sauvignon. They mainly have indoor seating without a real designated outdoor seating area. Also they don't have a kitchen but I was told they occasionally have food trucks in during the weekends.

I gotta admit the South Carolina State Park at Myrtle Beach was better than I expected. We were on a sandy campsite, but compared to the commercial campgrounds nearby it was big and relatively private. Also they have lots of shower/bathroom/laundry facilities, more than I've seen at any other campground and more than is shown on the website. The interior roads were paved and the almost all of the campsites pretty big, but are sand/dirt. They also have a nice camp store, nature center/trails and of course a GREAT beach with free fishing pier. If you forget any 'beachy' stuff there's another gift shop as you walk into the pier. Of course the best thing for me was the price and at $70/night it was about half the cost of the other campgrounds nearby.

Just want to say at the start that the 4 star rating is not due to the quality of the wine. Rather it's due to the fairly high cost for both wines and tasting along with some of their other rules about no coolers, comments on kids, pets, etc. Just doesn't come across as very friendly. We did a tasting of 6 wines, 2 white, 1 rose, and 3 reds, for $18 each and a bottle of wine is $30+ each. So for 6 wines per tasting this is hands down the most I've ever paid for a tasting in VA (a LOT), CA, AZ, NY, SC, NC, IN, KY, MI, GA, PA, WV, and TX. To be fair the wines we tasted were very good,but there just wasn't that many for the cost. We did have a very nice person doing the pours and the pours were generous. My personal favorite was definitely the Chardonnay. They have a very nice tasting area with both indoor and outdoor seating. No kitchen here (or food trucks the day I was there) but some munchies in a cooler for purchase.

This is a nice little winery out in the Lake Anna VA area. We've been to this location several times, but this is the 1st time I've posted a review. This is not a very large place, but they had 13 different wines split between white and red. Most of their wines were a little dry, but they did have 3 sweet wines (1 white and 2 reds). This winery is yet another one sticking with flights (4) instead of tasting so you get to figure out what you're drinking from a sheet. We had a flight of red and white. Our favorites were Totally White (blend) and and their Chambourcin. Anyway All the ones we had were good, these were just our favorite's. This place doesn't have a kitchen so bring your own food. They have a small outdoor seating area and a good indoor area to hang out. Anyway this place is definitely worth the drive.