Fine wine from Chesapeake

The weekend hasn't been so bad so far. I spent three hours yesterday demonstrating wine from urban Hampton Roads' only winery and today I'm giving 20 minutes' intensive care to the only blog I know that's losing followers.

Then it's off to Edenton to mooch around and look at a few cannons in the rain.

I've always been jealous of people who demonstrate wine in supermarkets so when a friend mentioned her work as a demonstrator, I jumped at the chance.

It's always amusing when I tell customers I'm demonstrating wine from Chesapeake. There's a recoiling motion of the neck followed by a loss of focus before they say very slowly and deliberately as if to talk over their sense of denial: "From Chesapeake?"

In fact Carafe Wine Makers produce the wine in a store on 1036 Volvo Parkway, suite #5 . Most customers become anxious about the thought of vines harvested off a road where they have probably spend some time twiddling their thumbs in traffic for long periods. I am always happy to inform them that the grapes are imported from some of the world's best wine making regions, predominantly in California.

The wine costs under $10 a bottle and is pretty good for the most part. I know as I have to spend most of the week finishing off the bottles.

Admittedly I get somewhat snobbish about our fruit mist wines such as the Sea Breezin, Riesling with a bold splash of Strawberry, which tastes more like Kool-Aid than wine to my mind. But sampling has helped me overcome my initial doubts. Many of our customers can't get enough of the stuff, especially the burly sailors at the local Navy base. My wife likes it too, which leaves me a free run on the reds.

I'm not sure if being British helps with the samplings. Yesterday a woman in Williambsurg assumed I must be a wine expert given my Australian roots. For a second I hesitated to correct her.

British vineyards aren't exactly world beaters. There's much to be said for global warming.

http://carafehr.com/