An Octagon Year!

Just as a good glass of wine embodies an amazing array of elements -- time and place; vines and grapes; where, when and with whom we taste -- last month I had a wine experience so wonderful that I'm savoring it still...

What made it so great?

Recently, friends had asked what constitutes the peak wine and food experiences of a lifetime. And though I've dined my way around the world a few times, I could not crisply recall any deeply enjoyed food and wine as separate from people and places I love.

So it was with great memories and anticipation that I set off to celebrate my brother and sister-in-law's 15th anniversary at Barboursville Vineyards just north of Charlottesville, VA.

Even the weather was evocative: There had been just such brilliant foliage and strong wind at their wedding. And in ensuing years, we'd marked many milestones together as Scott and Pat started a family, settled on a farm and built the home of their dreams -- octagon-shaped, timber-framed, a tribute to local landscape, stone, wood, craftspeople and above all to Thomas Jefferson, whose Poplar Forest inspired the place.

Under their octagon atrium, out on their octagon porch, we've celebrated a lot of amazing times...with the most important of them featuring Barboursville Vineyards' Octagon Wine.

Shown above: Barboursville Vineyards, and Scott and Pat in its Octagon Room, where the wine spends 12 - 13 months in oak before being bottled.

Octagon is a wine that has come to define the Virginia viticultural region envisioned by Thomas Jefferson.

It derives its name from the centerpiece of the historic Barboursville Estate -- the great room that defines the mansion that Thomas Jefferson created for Governor James Barbour.

A Bordeaux-style blend based primarily on Merlot, with vibrant upnotes of Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon and Petit Verdot, Octagon is only produced in exceptional years.

We enjoyed the 2004 vintage with a sumptious three-course lunch at Barboursville's award-winning Palladio Restaurant.

It was silky and symphonic -- brilliantly garnet, intensely berried, well balanced and seductive, with the graceful beckon of full fruit, toasty oak, restrained tannin.

After many toasts, we toured the tank room and cellars with winemakers Luca Paschina and Francesco Baravalle -- seeing, smelling and tasting fresh-crushed Barboursville Merlot as well as batches that had come in a few days ago and were fermenting still.

Then Carter Nicholas treated us to tastes of Barboursville's excellent and Italian-styped Pinot Grigio, Chardonnay and Cabernet Reserve, Barbera, and Phileo dessert wine.

Finally,we loaded the car with a full case of Octagon -- set aside for future festivities -- and with a mixed case of everything else we'd enjoyed.

Thomas Jefferson -- whose “pursuit of happiness” campaign proclaimed that “No nation is drunk where wine is available,” and who spent a surprising amount of his presidential salary on imported Bordeaux -- would be proud.

We -- who drink Octagon with people we love, in places we love, for reasons we love -- are ecstatic....

It's going to be an Octagon year!