Davis Valley Distillery and Winery

Rolling on down I-81 in southwest Virginia toward our home in east Tennessee, I had 4 possible wineries on my list for us to visit.  We skipped the second one on the list as it looked a bit ‘shaggy’ and we moved on to the third one…

This is the Davis Valley Distillery and Winery in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains near Rural Retreat Virginia.  Even though it was early spring and the trees hadn’t fully greened up yet, the setting for this winery was very appealing…

This is the entrance to the winery and distillery at Davis Valley.  The big dual function building at the top of the hill is set up for double duty…  

The first vineyards were planted here in Davis Valley in late 2000.  A bit later, the big building housing the winery and distillery was constructed.  This view is from the parking lot back down the valley with the vineyards off to the right.

Davis Valley Distillery and Winery is an industrial size operation!  For some reason I failed to take a photo of the huge wine tasting room and gift shop.  The enormous wooden bar in the wine tasting room is over 100 years old.

Davis Valley produces 6 different red wines.  They include Virginia Breeze Red, Davis Valley Red, Chambourcin, Autumn Red, Norton and Cabernet Franc.  They were out of the Cabernet.  Laurie bought a bottle of the 2010 Chambourcin.

The winery also offers 4 different white wines.  Since red wine and gout are natural enemies, white wine is my wine of choice.  I chose a bottle of the Chardonnay but other offerings include Appalachian Breeze, Virginia Breeze White and Davis Valley White.   

  

Davis Valley is also a distillery… Ever hear of a Virginian Bourbon Whiskey?  It hasn’t aged enough yet but Davis Valley will be selling a local bourbon in the not too distant future! 

We saw a lot of shiny high-end equipment during our little tour of the facility!  In addition to 10 varieties of wine and the aging bourbon, Davis Valley also produces handcrafted small batch grain based vodka, clear straight up corn based moonshine as well as 4 different flavored varieties of ‘clear’ as it’s sometimes called.  The flavored Moonshines include Strawberry Pie, Apple Pie, Cherry Pie and Peach Pie…

Given the wisdom of state officials, the wine tasting rooms in the State of Virginia has to be in an area that is separated from the distillery tasting facility.  That can’t be very efficient for a small business but perhaps there’s a reasonable rationale for this requirement.   Whereas the wine tasting room is spacious and nicely finished, the spirits area tasting area is closed off from the production area with a simple chain link fence.

We purchased 2 items from the above display… One was a bottle of Virginia Frost Vodka.  The sample was quite good even if it isn’t quite comparable with an expensive bottle of Grey Goose…  The second purchase was a jar of Appalachian Moon.  Our jar of moonshine is the Apple Pie version and it does taste like a nice alcoholic apple pie.  We envision this as a decadent dessert accompaniment drizzled over the top of a dish of vanilla bean ice cream!

Davis Valley Distillery and Winery is located at 1167 Davis Valley Road in Rural Retreat Virginia.  Both tasting rooms are open daily.  Phone: 276-686-8855.  It should be no surprise that Davis Valley has multiple websites for its different products.  However, if you go to www.davisvalleywinery.com you’ll find links to the site for the distillery and its different products.

Just click on any of the photos to enlarge them…

Thanks for stopping by for the tour!

Take Care, Big Daddy Dave