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Roger Morris | The News Journal | 08/03/2005

Festivals, tastings draw guests from near and far...

If you make good wine, will they come? "Yes," local winemakers are discovering — if there is a little promotion and good publicity to speed things along. This summer, winery tasting rooms in Chester County are overflowing at times, and it has become trendy for locals and the Philadelphia crowd to head for the vineyards, often with out-of-town guests. Local bed-and-breakfast owners have discovered that having nearby wineries on their list of things to do is an enticement for faraway guests.

But nothing has helped promote wine visits to multiple wineries better than the Brandywine Valley Wine Trail, which links together Twin Brook, Va La, Kreutz Creek, Chaddsford, Folly Hill, and Paradocx. Trail activities have encouraged wine lovers to try the whole gamut of local offerings through events and promotion.

Their next big events are the 2005 Harvest Festival (Sept. 24-25), with passports at $20, and their Vintner's Harvest Dinner on Oct. 29 at Folly Hill. This year's affair will be a gourmet, jacket-and-tie affair for $90 each with all food and wine included. (See www.bvtrail.com for details and winery Web sites.)

Other local activity of note:
Paradocx has broken ground for a new winery and tasting room on Flint Hill Road near its vineyards in Landenberg. Its current tasting room is in Fairville on Pa. 52. Paradocx, which recently took over the defunct Smithbridge Cellars vineyards (not winery) is now making wines from there under the Penns Woods label and is exploring having an additional tasting room at the vineyards on Beaver Valley Road.

Folly Hill, whose wines are now made from its grapes at partner Kreutz Creek, is also exploring building its own facility, while Kreutz Creek is considering the possibility of building a larger winery. Folly Hill has also completed a rental facility for events, the Cabernet Room, an Amish timber-frame building that can accommodate 125 people for a sit-down dinner in its main room, 40 in its cellar room, and more on its patio.

Va La Vineyards will soon be releasing a line of special reserve wines. They are Parchment (32 total cases), a cabernet sauvignon and cabernet franc blend aged for four years in French oak, and Rococo (75 cases), another blend — corvina, petit verdot, barbera, and cabernet sauvignon — which is in the rancio style of controlled oxidation with extended aging.

Chaddsford has come up with another first — a wines-by-the-glass option for visitors, who can enjoy them with cheeses, sausages and other delights in the winery's appropriately named Wine by the Glass Cafe.

Those who like to plan far in advance can pencil in the Barrels on the Brandywine event, which features tasting of new wines each weekend in March.

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