Prince Michel Winery

Prince Michel is located along 29, as you are driving South toward Charlottesville, VA  There are two wine lists offered at Prince Michel that are: Prince Michel Wines and Rapidan River Wines.  I stopped off today to take a look at the vineyard.  The grounds a very pretty and offer some opportunity for relaxation, if you ignore the cars zooming by on 29.  I stepped inside to find a large, round bar with people crammed around it conducting tastings.  Around the tasting room was all kinds of paraphernalia and wine gifts for sale.  The atmosphere didn't feel like a winery at all.  As I observed the activity going on around the bar, I realized it was more like a they were processing people through the wine list and not really guiding people through the wine tasting.  When I got to the bar, the host simply swung over, provided me two sheets of paper with wines listed and said "the tasting is $5.00 to taste 10 wines.  Mark them on your sheet and I'll start pouring."  He then swung over to his other guest, proceeded to pour their next wine and followed the same pattern around.  There was no discussion of the wine, the process to make it or the information about the winery, provided.  Blah.   It was, in fact, how I imagined the Prince Michel experience would be over the last year and reinforced my feeling of why I did not want to spend my money there.  I did mark off some wines to taste.  They included a selection of reds, white, and desserts from 2009 and 2010, but the host was busy and didn't make it back to me.  So I aborted my $5.00 tasting and headed on out. 

Overall, the place felt like a cross between rest stop and a fast food restaurant.  Many seem to like Prince Michel and its definitely some place exciting to try.  Unfortunately, its not my venue.

On my way, I snapped these pics:

The entrance.

The vineyard to the left of the building.