GREAT VINEYARDS AROUND CHARLOTTESVILLE

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. - Perhaps it's no surprise that we found a Thomas at Jefferson Vineyards. A banker, Thomas will retire at 50 to build boats. He's a man who takes his time. A man of substance.

In fact, "Thomas" is Jefferson Vineyards' cabernet sauvignon. For a women's weekend in Charlottesville, two old friends and I decided to explore the region's wineries. The three of us are wine tyros, but, as all of us are around 40, we have some experience with men. So we applied a system to our tasting: If this wine were a man, what would be his name? His occupation? His personality? In short, was there material here for a long-term relationship?

We stopped by Jefferson Vineyards after a visit to Monticello, home of Thomas Jefferson, farmer, scholar, diplomat, third president of the United States, and lover of a good glass of wine. He selected the first bottles for the White House.

Jefferson, who lived in Paris for years, dreamed of growing vineyards on his home soil. He repeatedly tried to cultivate the right grapes, and wrote off his failures to a climate harsher than those in the vineyards of France. Probably it had more to do with pests and fungi.

"Architecture is my delight," Jefferson once said. "Pulling up and putting down is one of my favorite amusements."

Monticello was a construction site for 40 years; completed, it's a feat of design. We were most impressed by the corridor that runs beneath the house, giving slaves and servants shelter from the weather as they completed household tasks. There Jefferson installed a privy (he had two in the house as well, remarkable for his time), the kitchen, and a wine cellar, stocked with dusty bottles, imported from France and Italy.

It wasn't until the 1960s that Virginia planters succeeded in making fine wines. And in the past 20 years the vineyards have taken off. The 2003 Festival and Tour Guide to Virginia Wineries lists 78 vineyards, covering more than 2,250 acres.

Jefferson Vineyards sits on the site where Thomas Jefferson invited Italian Filippo Mazzei to plant grapes on land adjacent to Monticello. Virginia is best known for viognier, a fruity white wine, and cabernet franc, a light red made of grapes that thrive in the area's humid summers. Tasting Jefferson's slate, from dry white through red to the ice wines sipped with dessert, we tried out our classification system.

The intriguingly named Chardonnay Fantaisie Sauvage, so dubbed because it's made with wild yeast, had a lot of flash. We called it Vic, an outdoorsman, probably a hunter. It's a chardonnay-viognier blend we thought to be a bit of an intellectual showoff, but the full- blooded viognier impressed us: a woodworker, we thought. Good with his hands.

At the first two vineyards, Jefferson and Afton Mountain, things didn't get interesting until we tasted the reds. Jefferson pours a smooth, velvety merlot we called Michael, the man who gets the job done, and who does it right the first time. We each bought a bottle. The merlot at Afton Mountain didn't measure up: Handsome Drake, he has an affinity for cigars and vintage autos, wears a velvet robe, and tends to stand just a little too close most of the time.

As for the ice wines, we enjoyed Jefferson's vidal blanc, which has 12 percent residual sugar. We called him Raj, a playboy with a nice inheritance. At Afton Mountain, we suspected that the Mountain White, a chardonnay and Riesling blend, might be a drag queen.

Our third winery, First Colony, caused us to throw away our expectations about white wines. Here, the chardonnays felt like someone you could go on a second and even a third date with; we liked the chardonnay reserve (Clint, a surgeon, with steady hands), but were put off by the chardonnay barrel select (Clintier than Clint: a neurosurgeon on the arrogant side). The viognier? Jamie, a classical guitar player, and more lighthearted than either of the surgeons.

We didn't spend all our time in Charlottesville sipping wine. It's a charming city, steeped in history. Besides Monticello, the homes of the fourth and fifth US presidents, James Madison (Montpelier) and James Monroe (Ash Lawn-Highland), are both here and open to visitors.

The city buzzes with artistic and intellectual life. It's the home of the University of Virginia (founded by Jefferson), and it has a meaty array of galleries and museums. We stopped by the Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection at the university, one of the largest collections of Australian Aboriginal art. At the Second Street Gallery, a nonprofit space at the City Center for Contemporary Arts, we saw high-caliber local and international work.

We whiled away an afternoon strolling the Downtown Mall, a brick- paved walkway with more than 100 shops and 30 restaurants. Timberlake's is an old-style drugstore with a soda fountain and deli. The Hardware Store, a restaurant with a menu that includes burgers and peanut butter-and-banana sandwiches, also houses two art galleries, a jewelry store, a bookstore, and a candy shop. We listened to some fine banjo picking at the Gravity Lounge, a cyber- cafe and bookstore known for its live world and folk music.

Outlying Albemarle County, with its rolling farmland unfurling toward the Blue Ridge Mountains, is beautiful country to drive through. We took a ride up into the mountains to go to Afton Mountain Vineyards, which has a stunning sunset view from its tasting room. This is the region where the television show "The Waltons" was set. We passed The Walton Family Museum, but didn't visit because it's closed in the winter.

On our way back to Charlottesville, we took a detour to Nellysford, where we heard we could find good barbecue. The Blue Ridge Pig is a hole in the wall, with plywood ceilings and dark walls. Pig figurines add color, but none is needed when you taste the barbecue. We shared chicken with a rich, smoky flavor as subtle and complex as any wine. It didn't occur to us to name the meal. If we had, we'd probably have called it Elvis.

SIDEBAR: Charlottesville, Va. itinerary

Friday

6 p.m. Check in Omni Charlottesville Hotel

235 West Main St.

434-971-5500

www.omnihotels.com Rooms $129-$159 and up Just steps to the Downtown Mall.

7:30 p.m. Dinner Retro bistro Bizou

119 West Main St.

Downtown mall

434-977-1818

$13-$19

From meatloaf to nouvelle cuisine.

Saturday

10 a.m. Start the tour Monticello Route 53, Thomas Jefferson Parkway

434-984-9800

www.monticello.org In addition to being author of the Declaration of Independence and third president of the United States, Jefferson is credited as the father of American wine. His home testifies to his intellect and passion for design.

Noon First sip Jefferson Vineyards

1353 Thomas Jefferson Parkway

434-977-3042, 800-272-3042

www.jeffersonvineyards.com Try the merlot: fruity, with spicy and peppery notes.

2 p.m. Art break Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection University of Virginia

400 Worrell Drive

434-244-0234

www.virginia.edu/kluge-ruhe Australian aboriginal art, including paintings, boomerangs, spears, shields, and sculptures of animals that inhabited the earth at the time of creation.

4:30 p.m. Second sip Afton Mountain Vineyards

234 Vineyard Lane, Afton

540-456-8667

Sample the claret, a crisp, dry blush wine.

6 p.m. Dinner The Blue Ridge Pig Route 151, Nellysford

434-361-1170

$3-$12

Tender, smoky barbecue.

Sunday

1:30 p.m. Third sip First Colony Winery

1650 Harris Creek Road

434-979-7105, 877-979-7105

www.firstcolonywinery.com Catch the whiff of berries in the cabernet franc.