Venture to Mt. Vale Winery, Galax, Va.

The sedum heads are turning pink. The tomatoes are in decline. And it gets dark while the evening is still warm enough to be outside.

Autumn is coming too fast for my taste. 

So my husband planned an end-of-summer outing for us that was PERFECT!


We drove a mere forty minutes from home into southern Virginia. Mt. Vale Winery  perches on one of the rolling hills outside of Galax. The tasting room is in the same building as the winery, and the stainless steel tanks are visible just on the other side of the door. They grow about a ton and a half of their own grapes, and buy from other vineyards what they need to finish their wine making. We've sampled wines from many local wineries, and I think these were some of the best.

We got there early on Friday afternoon and enjoyed tasting four wines while chatting with the owner and vintner. We selected items from their mini-deli to add to our picnic. Then we walked halfway down the hill to one of the two gazebos and enjoyed a table overlooking the grapes and the farms across the road. It was like having our own estate.





Then we headed through Galax to the New River and strolled along the foot, bike and horse path for a short mile.  We took over the bench vacated by teenage fishermen who had biked in with their dads.












We watched and invented stories about the people living in the big white farm house on the other side of the river. The school bus lumbered down the narrow road from the right. Three dogs ran in from the left toward the girl getting off the bus and scampered around her knees. She ignored them but stopped for a chat and a hug with the person mowing the lawn. Would she go to the football game at her high school that night? Did she have a crush on a someone she'd see in the stand or on the field? When they went in the house we turned off our imaginations.


The afternoon was as slow and relaxed as the river gently rolling by us.