Winery Visit- Attimo Winery

On Friday, March 23, 2012 three of my closest friends and I visited the charming and quaint Attimo Winery.  I hadn't heard much about this winery before my visit, but was pleasantly surprised once we arrived.

Attimo Winery is located on the outskirts of Christiansburg with the beautiful rolling hills as its backdrop.  Rik and Melissa Obiso graduated from Virginia Tech in 1997 and returned to southwest Virginia in 2006 to make their winery a reality. Attimo winery includes a large vineyard as well as a tasting room located in their tuscan style home.  The Obiso's began vine planting in 2007 and document 2010 and 2011 as their largest production years to date.  Currently, there are over 10,000 vines on the property and believe their is further potential to grow in the upcoming years. 

I found Attimo shattered my preconceived notion of how wineries and vineyards looked and the type of vibe associated with it.  In my head, I often associate wineries with fancy dinner parties, grand decor, and elegant attire.  Attimo evoked relaxation, comfort, and warmth with modern decor choices and friendly staff.  The tasting room was about the size of a family room, which only reitereated my earlier sentiments of comfort and warmth.  My friends and I had a choice of sampling our wines on a cozy couch or a small circular table and ultimately chose to sit at the table to get the full effect.  The tasting room used minimal lighting and relied a lot on natural lighting, which allowed us to appreciate the atmosphere and natural beauty that surrounded us.  Our waitress was very patient and attentive making sure to check in on us throughout the tasting experience.  She was extremely friendly and welcomed the many questions we threw her way with insightful and intriguing answers.  I would love to go back to this winery with my mom to enjoy a relaxing afternoon at a winery that is more like a quaint, country lounge than a formal winery environment.  While at Attimo we were able to sample an array of white, red, and dessert wines that displayed the diverse wines produced there.  During our tasting, we sampled 9 of the following wines:

• Sonnet 98(2010): a vidal blanc with a soft floral nose and light color.  I found this wine to be very light and refreshing with subtle hints of vegetable, soil or earth on the nose.  I enjoyed this wine a lot, because it had a light body, but wasn't overly sweet.  I would recommend this wine for warm summer nights outside with a light salad or spicy dish to compliment this white wine
• I do (2010): this was another white wine, but with completely different characteristics than the sonnet.  I'd describe this wine as bubbly with a zing or spice on the initial taste.  This is a blended wine with 80% Traminette and 20% Petit Manseng.  I found that this wine almost reminded me of a sparkling wine, because it was sweet, bubbly, and light which are characteristics I often find with sparkling wines.  This was an exciting wine for me, because on the nose it was light and citrusy, but on the palate there was a hint of spice that created depth in this seemingly light wine.
• Deep Silence (2010): This was the first red wine we tried during the sampling and was their Cabernet Franc wine.  On the nose I could easily detect buttery, vegetale aromas that indicate that it took on some flavors from the oak barrell.  It was extremely dry to the point that I needed to drink a substantial amount of water to wash that dry feeling away.  Our server said we should be able to taste hints of berries, but was unable to detect much flavor from this wine at all.  Was largely disappointed with this wine, because I keep hearing how great Virginia Cabernet Francs are, but continually am underwhelmed by them.
• AD 325 (2010): this was Attimo's Chambourcin wine and was 13.8% alcohol.  Our server informed us that this red wine was completely unoaked, which means that the wine was stored in stainless steel so that the only flavors you detect are from the grape itself.  I could certainly tell the difference between this wine and the oaked wines, because it didn't have the overall buttery, vanilla tastes and aromas that I found in the other wines.  Could taste hints of cherry and found that this wine would pair well with dark chocolate. 
• Sweet Berry Sunset:  One of Attimo's dessert wines, this wine actually adds raspberries to a red blended wine to intensify fruit flavors.  I could definitely taste the raspberry within the wine and found it was similar to berry juice.  This was a very easy wine to drink, but was a bit too sweet for me, unless I used this wine as my dessert.
• Sudden Downpour: another infused wine, this blends Chardonnay, Sauvignon lanc, Apple wine and is finished off with Bourbon.  I found this wine to be extremely sugary to the point that I almost felt nauseus.  Even though this wine is only 12.5% alcohol, I could feel the heat from the bourbon which made it feel strong and heavy to me.
• Masquerade (2010): This is Attimo's Chardonnay wine with typical new world characteristics.  On the nose I found this wine to be very earthy, buttery, and soily.  On the palate it was very silky and smooth, but couldn't actually taste much of anything.  This was certainly one of my least favorite.
• Vertex (2010): Attimo's Cabernet Sauvignon with 13% alcohol.  Our server informed us that the Cabernet grapes were imported from California, because they can't seem to flourish in Southwest Virginia.  Can definitely tell that this wine has been oaked for a long period of time, because I could smell butter, vegetation, and vanilla on the nose.  On the palate there was rich berry flavors that awakened my taste buds and was not too dry.  I'd say this was my favorite red wine out of all the wines I tried.
• Seduction (2010): Attimo's variation on a ruby port with Tinta Moderal, Touriga nacional and Sauzao grapes imported from Portugl.  This wine had the highest percentage of alcohol with 18% and it was certainly evident when I tasted this wine.  It had way too much heat and felt way too strong for a low-key wine drinking night.  However, I did enjoy the strong berry and fruit components of this wine.

Overall, I really enjoyed my visit to Attimo Winery and would recommend it to anyone that's looking for a low-key environment to sample a few great wines from our region.  Although I wasn't overly enthused about any of the wines in particular, I was impressed with the variety and diversity of wines they produced on a relatively small vineyard.