Virginia Wine Country Review

Thomas Jefferson spent decades trying to grow European wine grapes at Monticello and failed every time — the vines died of disease and cold — but he’d be delighted now, because the foothills around Charlottesville have become genuinely good wine country. The Monticello AVA is the heart of it: hundreds of vineyards across Virginia, a signature grape in Viognier, and rolling Piedmont scenery of red barns and blue mountains that makes a tasting-room afternoon one of the best easy pleasures in the state. It’s not Napa, it doesn’t want to be, and it quietly makes some of the most interesting wine on the East Coast.