Charlottesville VA
I visited Charlottesville, Virginia for the first time and was charmed with the rolling hills, the tourist sites and sophisticated venues for eating and drinking. The old downtown area called The Mall wasn’t a Mall as in Washington DC with monuments, but historic pedestrian blocks lined with bars, restaurants and shops. We had a cocktail at The Whiskey Jar before dinner at Fleurie. The restaurant gets an enthusiastic thumbs up from me. French food is always my first choice and this one is as good as any big city spots I know. The pre-fixe menu changes frequently and depends on local famers. The wine list features local, American and French selections. I enjoyed the suggested wine pairing to accompany my meal that began with scallops barely warm, sliced thin on top a corn puree with a hint of tomato and shallot. The most perfectly cooked tender lamb chops, solid pink from top to bottom with a lightly seared surface were double or maybe triple cut. (Sous Vide is alive and well?) One chop would have been enough but I left nothing behind. The Creme Brûlée to finish was crispy on top, creamy and not overly sweet.
The Pippin Hill Winery was a visual delight sitting on a terrace overlooking the winery and patio with pleasing food and wine tasting. The tapas style size plates were meant for sharing so you can try more items. We shared a white flight and a red flight amongst four people which is a great way to sip eight wines and then order a glass of your favorite from the flight.
The Ivy Road House is our friends’ favorite neighborhood spot. It would be mine too if I lived there. There’s nothing quite like that variety and quality on the top of Queen Anne in Seattle. The Pro Re Nata Brewery was lively with picnic tables outdoors, a stage for live music and food truck choices to go with the beer, cider, wine and canned cocktails. It was a terrific choice on a sunny afternoon after hiking. An excellent hike nearby includes an abandoned train tunnel through the mountains that’s a three-mile roundtrip in the dark on a flat gravel path. Plenty of families, dogs and flashlights made it easy enough to see where you were walking and dodging the mud puddles from leaks in the rock ceiling.
Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello is a popular venue that you could spend a few hours or a day touring and diving into all the details. The famous third President of the United States is credited with the elegant language of the Declaration of Independence and is the founder of the University of Virginia. The plantation covered about five thousand acres during his day growing a variety of crops and producing many of the daily things needed like nails. The Nailery operation made a big impression on me due to the exacting productivity measurement used everyday on each slave, typically a boy of ten to sixteen years old, who worked ten to fourteen hours each day. The incentive for high productivity was more to eat. Creating up to 10,000 nails a day, the Nailery was a good source of cash for awhile but couldn’t be sustained due to cheaper imports and supply problems.
The house features fine furniture, art and inventions. The kitchen’s eight burner stove fascinated me. The wine cellar and indoor outhouse offered innovations Jefferson instigated. He preferred bottled wine to barrels as they were much more difficult for thieves to open to dilute the wine. The Slave Tour after the House Tour was informative about the brutal, stressful life of a slave of any age and the organization of the plantation. Thomas Jefferson was not known as a kind or benevolent slave owner. I wish the line for the Sally Hemings’ tour hadn’t been too long to wait for.
The campus of the University of Virginia is extensive. We gave it short shrift by driving through instead of walking and looking at everything. I wished we’d been able to squeeze in some museums and theatre. There is lots to do in Charlottesville, VA. I hope to go back and see more.