Virginia First in Wine License Plates

I have had a .com license plate on my SSR for some time now, but will gladly trade it in for the new Virginia Wineries license plates. The first wines in America were made in Jamestown, VA, and in my opinion, some of the best wines in the world are made today in the rolling hills of the Shenandoah.

If you are a Virginian and would like to get a First in Wine License Plate, please fill out your application and send it in to the Virginia Wineries Association. They need 350 registrations before Virginia will stamp the plates.

From the Daily Press here:

The Virginia Wineries Association has been trying without success for two years to get 350 people to buy “Virginia, first in wine” license plates.

After all, a few minutes after the first settlers anchored at Jamestown in 1607, they tested wild grapes for wine potential. And in 1619, the House of Burgesses passed a law commanding “that every householder annually plant and maintain ten vines.”

The Department of Motor Vehicles regulations require 350 buyers before they’ll stamp out a plate. So the wineries association has been trying to line up 350 growers, sellers or just plain friends of Bacchus to pony up $25 to tell their story on the bumper of a car.

“It’s tough to get 350 people,” Tonya Rideout, speaking for the association, said Monday. “So far, we’ve got about 100 applications, maybe 120.”

If somehow more than 1,000 plates are sold, $15 of the $25 application fee goes to Virginia Tech’s ecology research department.

If successful, the wine lovers can have a plate alongside those pledging allegiance to creatures (bass, brook trout, mallards, white tail deer, bear, eagle, turkey), singer Jimmy Buffet (Parrotheads) and the Washington Redskins.

To register, follow the direction at the Virginia Wineries Association page here.