The Sipping Point

Out in the Vineyards

Landon Maddox knows what his public wants. The limo is always freshly polished and fully stocked with champagne and snacks when he arrives to whisk people into wine country.

Not that Nanci Myers and crew needed extra provisions. The five-woman gaggle, friends for more than 20 years, had stocked up on muffins, chicken salad sandwiches and homemade sangria before the 50-minute ride to Pearmund Cellars, the first in a three-stop tour of Virginia's wineries.

The official occasion was Myers's 50th birthday, but that was just an excuse -- and excuse to gather, to drink, to demand the queenly service they deserved.

There are a half-dozen bus and limo companies around town willing to chauffeur patrons to the 108 Virginia wineries or the 22 in Maryland. Wine snobs are often quick to disparage the quality of the wines produced in this region. But there are some gems among them, and you've got to be in a really foul mood not to enjoy the idyllic landscapes and affable service at most local wineries.

Standing among the vines, swirling glasses of a 2004 Viognier, our mid-Atlantic Ya-Yas requested that their guide -- vineyard owner Chris Pearmund -- give a thorough explanation of the wine-making process, but do it "in the briefest possible way."

The women, who met two decades ago when they all worked for a local government contractor, chose an excursion with Virginia Wine Country Tours, a group that often coordinates special meetings with vineyard officials and provides drivers who have some knowledge of the state's wine industry.

After sampling the selection and picking up a few bottles at Pearmund, it was back into the limo and over to Oasis Winery in Hume, where Myers and friends were greeted with a glass of champagne and asked to roll up their pant legs. Turns out this stop included a little "I Love Lucy"-style grape stomping before the tour and tasting. At Oasis, there was much lingering over brie and Cabernet Sauvignon, and even Penny "I'm a beer girl" Price seemed to be having a fine time.

Too soon, afternoon turned to evening and there was still one more stop to be made. Luckily, Rappahannock Cellars is just a few miles down the road, and owner John Delmare, along with four of his 12 kids (12!), were waiting for the group to arrive. The merry band descended into the winery's bowels for a quick lesson on fermentation and then back up into the tasting room, where smiles emerged as the corks were pulled. Biggest hit -- a potent dessert wine named Solera.

The journey was supposed to end at 5, but it was nearly 8 by the time Myers and her friends poured back into the limo, its trunk nearly full from treasures found along the way.

It had been rumored that a polo match was underway nearby -- the only decision left was whether to venture out for more fun or head home to pajamas and pillows. Landon Maddox, of course, promised to take them wherever they wanted to go.

VIRGINIA WINE COUNTRY TOURS 540-622-2505. http://www.virginiawinecountrytours.com. Accommodates groups of two to 48 in its limos and buses. $270-$900-plus. (The cost per person declines as the size of the groups increases.)

More information on local wineries and events can be found at http://www.virginiawines.org and http://www.marylandwine.com.

New World Shops

Let there be no question, the best place to buy wine is the little shop close to your house, where the salesperson knows your preferences, your price range and your dog's nickname. Stores like Calvert Woodley in Van Ness, Schneider's of Capitol Hill and MacArthur Beverages in the Palisades have built legions of loyalists with their focus on deep variety and impeccable customer service.

There is, however, a new breed of wine store cropping up throughout the Washington area that aims to offer an alternative way to choose a bottle, or three. The idea is to target busy consumers by paring down the selection, keeping the inventory affordable and organizing wines by taste and body, rather than by region.

"It's really about making it fun, easy to navigate . . . about taking things down a notch so people can make informed decisions," said Brett Freeman, general manager of Best Cellars, a shop in Dupont Circle where the color-coded wine categories include "fizzy," "fresh," "smooth" and "luscious." The chain store's "juicy" wine section, for instance, contains both a Cabernet Sauvignon and a Pinot Noir.

Best Cellars' daily tastings (happy hour starts at 5:30 here), bring in neighborhood denizens and the business class crowd from nearby office buildings, many of whom linger in the store at length, chatting with Freeman and his staff and with each other as Shakira is piped into the background.

"I like the way it's laid out. It's pretty easy, and they've got a good selection without being overwhelming," said Robert Moore, a District resident who needed a bottle fastened by a screw top so he and his girlfriend wouldn't have to bring a corkscrew to the Elvis Costello concert at Wolf Trap last week. (The Twin Fin Pinot Noir being tasted that day fit the bill.)

One of the first WineStyles stores to open in the Washington area sits alongside a Pizza Hut and a sub shop in a busy Fairfax strip mall. The franchise operation, which focuses on unusual wines for less than $25, seems to take more than a few cues from Starbucks. The small, cozily lit space is all muted sages and smooth wood trims and calming lounge music.

Like Best Cellars, the wines are arranged by attributes and each wine is matched with a color code and suggestions for food pairings.

The owners of each WineStyles store choose from a list of 2,000 approved wines but stock only 150 at a time, thus keeping it manageable for customers. The idea, says Marcie Larkin, who opened the Fairfax store with her husband, James, last Thanksgiving, is to make it so "people really love coming in here."

Best Cellars Dupont Circle, 1643 Connecticut Ave. NW, 202-387-3146. Best Cellars Clarendon, 2855 Clarendon Blvd., Arlington, 703-741-0404. WineStyles, 12717 Shoppes Lane, Fair Lakes Shopping Center, Fairfax, 703-222-9463.

Head of the Class

There were notes taken, glasses swirled and PowerPoint slides projected inside a windowless room at the Pentagon City Ritz-Carlton earlier this month. A button-down crowd paid $65 each for a proper wine class, and that's exactly what they got.

That evening's lesson: "Great Whites of the World." The folks at the Washington Wine Academy weren't sure how this one would be received, what with reds being so much more in vogue and all.

But a respectable 15 people showed up for the two-hour class to hear Robert Cavanaugh, the academy's vice president, announce that "there are a couple different styles of white wines, and we're going to try all of them -- actually, we have 11 wines tonight."

Nice. It's really too bad all postgraduate classes don't start with similar proclamations.

As the students moved from Sauvignon Blanc to Gewurztraminer to Sauterne, Cavanaugh polled his audience for thoughtful reflections.

"Someone tell me something about the taste of this wine," he prompted after a Riesling Kabinett was poured.

"Honeydew," one student piped up.

"Citrus," countered another.

"It's sweet," said a third.

More serious and structured than some events around town, wine classes and seminars -- offered by several culinary schools and wine groups around town -- are often tailored to consumers looking to build on a base of knowledge.

"I have a lot of wine books and I have been reading a lot, but pretentious people are always like, 'What do you know about wine?' " said Lily Buerkle, 27, of Cleveland Park. "When I went to that class I was like, 'Hey, I really do know some things.' "

For each wine, Cavanaugh offered a bit of history and a bit of science. But mostly he made his students do the work, forcing them to voice their own reactions, rather than blindly accepting the judgments of professional wine critcs.

"It's wine geeks like myself that have made things so complicated," he concedes. "If I served five different kinds of pizza, you would have no problem talking about it."

WASHINGTON WINE ACADEMY 703-971-1525. http://www.washingtonwineacademy.org. The academy offers ongoing classes at various locations. Prices are $40 to $65 per class.

The GREATER WASHINGTON WINE SCHOOL 301-657-0220. http://www.gwwsllc.com. Ongoing classes, offered at various locations, cost $40 to $50.

Ellen McCarthy is a Weekend section staff writer.