Unicorn Winery

We visited the Unicorn Winery in Amissville, VA. on the way back from our camping trip on Sunday. The winery had just completed the harvest, and unfortunately, since the winery is located in the same building as the tasting room, the place was inundated with fruit gnats. It was a tad annoying, but it didnt really detract too much from the tasting.

The tasting room is moderately sized compared to many other wineries, and the grounds are well maintained and landscaped to allow different flowers to bloom year round. There is a patio overlooking a pond that is next to the tasting room that allows visitors to sit and enjoy a bottle while watching the sunset.

Unicorn’s wines are all modestly priced, with the majority listed at 12 dollars. The Chardonnay was aged in oak barrels and is vintage 2002, but it was surprisingly mild and rather ordinary in flavor. The other whites had hints of various citrus fruits, and would make great table wines or sipping wines on a warm day.

The red wines were the best family of wines for Unicorn. The merlot was good, but there are much better merlots in the region. The Cabernet Franc was excellent and had a deep color and peppery taste. It went very well with the steaks I grilled last night.

Unicorn has several blended wines, and frankly, the blended wines are the very best the winery has to offer. The blended red was called “Meritage” and it contained a blend of half Cab-Sav, and a quarter each of Merlot and Cab Franc. This blend was very smooth with none of the biting hints of the single wines themselves.

The final blended wine is called “Slightly Embarrassed” which is an off-dry rose of the citric whites and the red Chambourcin, which is an American-French hybrid grape. This wine was a festive flavor and would be excellent to share with friends.

We got bottles of the Cab Franc and the Slightly Embarrassed.