My friends and I did a winery visit to Chateau Morrisette! We absolutely loved our experience and we all can't wait to come back. This is such a hidden gem in SWVA, they have so many events including a girl's night! We walked in and were immediately greeted and asked if we wanted to do a free tasting. We tried many wines, took a tour and then went to the restaurant for some delicious food. Inside of the winery Some wines we tasted We tried 10 different wines. They gave us a paper that explained the wines and I used the paper to rate them. They were put in three different categories, sweet, red and white. Here are my ratings: Our Dog Blue: A very famous wine of theirs and wine I have tried before. I rated it a 9/10. It is a Riesling and was very refreshing. It is mixed with a dry white grape, Traminette. Sweet Mountain Laurel: I rated this a 10/10. This is exactly what I want in a wine. It was sweet and refreshing. It tased like I was just sucking on the grape that they made this out of. It is made from a ripe Niagara grape. Red Mountain Laurel: I also rated this a 10/10 (obviously I am not hard to please). It reminded me of sparkling welches juice. It's made from fresh Concord and Niagara grape. Farmhouse Sangria: Also rated a 10/10! It smelled like oranges, and it tasted like a fancy fruit punch (which is exactly what was described to us). It is a sweet red wine infused with cherry, orange and lime. 2020 Chardonnay: I rated this a 7/10. It was my second favorite white they let us try. It was fermented in stainless steel and it had notes of grapefruit. 2023 Chardonnay: I rated this a 4/10... It was not my favorite. It is explained as a clean balance of citrus, vanilla and toasted oak. I just tasted the dryness. 2023 Vidal Blanc: I rated this a 9/10. It was delicious! It had a strong citrus taste, mostly lemon. It had a smooth finish and had hints of peach as well. This wine won the 2024 and 2025 Governor's Cup Silver Winner and it makes sense why! 2023 Chambourcin: This ended up being my favorite wine. I rated it an 8.5/10 on the paper but honestly it is a 10/10. It's made with cranberry, chocolate and black pepper. I was not expecting it to be so good but you can taste and smell the pepper which I surprisingly loved. This wine also won a 2025 Governor's Cup Silver. 2017 Cab Sauvignon: I rated this a 9/10. It had notes of plum, green tea, dried flowers and vanilla. It was delicious. You could really taste the plum and smell the vanilla. 2021 Cab Sauvignon: I rated this a 9.5/10. It had notes of cedar and walnut mixed with red fruit. It had a very smooth finish and was silky. It won the 2025 Governor's Cup Gold Winner just last month! Stainless Steel Tanks Wine Barrels Our lovely tour guide took us to their back room where they keep and ferment their wines. Everything was so grand and looked very expensive. They had multiple oak barrels that they were storing wine in as well as giant stainless-steel tanks that they kept and fermented some of their wines in. Stainless Steel Tanks Stained Oak Barrel Some of their oak barrels were stained with red wine. Our tour guide told us that wines in these old barrels usually have better and richer taste. She told us the process of checking the wine, there are ladders and walkways above the stainless-steel tanks. They open up the top of the tanks and check on the wine. She said to be very careful! These are high pressure tanks, and the wine is very hot inside of them. She told us a story of someone not checking to see the pressure and heat of the wine before opening a tank and they got a third degree burn on their arm. Bottling and Labeling Machine She showed us this machine that puts the wine into the bottles and labels them. After they come out they are taste tested. If more than two wines from that batch don't taste correctly, they throw out the entire batch because they know something went wrong. They have vineyards on the property but they also get grapes shipped in from a vineyard in California. The vineyard in California doesn't make wine and ships grapes out to winemakers. Charcuterie Board My friends walking into the restaurant I ended up ordering the chambourcin at the restaurant because I loved it so much. This charcuterie board was delicious; we split it evenly between the four of us. My favorite part was the little pickled red peppers they were super yummy. It was brie, gruyere and cheddar. They were all very delicious. Brussel Sprout Appetizer French Dip Sandwich with Onion Rings We all shared the Brussel sprout appetizer. They were delicious and crispy and packed with flavor. For dinner I got a french dip sandwich with onion rings. The onions rings were battered perfectly, probably the best onion rings I've had. The sandwich was also delicious and paired really well with my peppery wine. This dinner was honestly really affordable for what we got, I paid a little under $30 for a meal, a glass of wine and we split the appetizers. They also brought us blankets because it was cold outside.