Back when I had a side hustle as a winery tour driver, customers sometimes asked me to choose our next place to visit on the fly. If we were near Crozet, I invariably headed to White Hall Vineyards, which is out of the way and offers a feeling of discovery. You approach on a gravel […]
We usually present a dessert in The Last Bite, the department title of the last page of Knife & Fork magazine. But in our winter 2019/20 issue, we switched it up with an exclusive sweet/savory/hearty twist on classic baked acorn squash. Chef Della Bennett of Plenty, the fine home-cooking delivery service, recommends the creation as […]
At UVA, I did my third year in Madrid, Spain, and I discovered San Sebastian, a resort town on the coast near the French border that’s famous for its food. It has Michelin-starred restaurants, but my favorite places to eat there were pinxto bars. Pinxto means spike, or skewer, but it translates generally to snack, […]
On a sunny, blustery day in October, friends and fans of the four-year-old Virginia winery Lightwell Survey gathered in Waynesboro to celebrate the 2017 vintage release. Notably, a clown juggled red balls while swaying on a balance board, keeping the mood light—and slightly off-kilter. The winery’s neighbors in the complex include a concrete-fabrication facility as […]
The rain lets up all at once and the sun burns through the clouds, turning the dreary October day startlingly warm and pleasant. Clay Trainum, 58, walks swiftly along a dirt farm road behind his Waynesboro home, cutting across a 14-acre field toward a row of about 10 wooden lean-tos. The triangular structures stand at […]
On July 1, 2018, Virginia House Bill 286 went into effect, officially allowing dogs to enter winery tasting rooms. The occasion was met with no discernible reaction from one constituency: the dogs that live at wineries. • Those lucky animals need not engage in any “get your laws off my fur” protest. As vineyard owners […]
Bryant Farms and Nursery in Shipman doesn’t look that remarkable from the road: just acres of hillsides planted with young trees, their straight slender trunks forming a grid pattern. It’s not obvious, from a distance, what species is growing here. But following the gravel drive through the orchard, down into a ravine and up again, […]
Set in a field in the countryside far from the town’s population center, Barracks Road Shopping Center opened a handful of stores in 1959, anchored by a Kroger supermarket. Sixty years later, the center is the crown jewel of Charlottesville retail, hosting over 80 shops, restaurants, and experiences that attract customers from well beyond the […]
What could be better than getting out of your home office or work site for a few hours, sipping a macchiato, and getting sh*t done in a buzzy coffee shop? Luckily for us, options abound in Charlottesville. Here are our top five picks for the local java spots most conducive to that sweet #teleworklife. (Note: […]
THEN: Leggett’s, opened in 1939 // NOW: Violet Crown, opened in 2015 “Quality merchandise. Popular prices.” So went a 1954 ad slogan for Leggett’s, a department store well-known in Charlottesville—and throughout the Mid-Atlantic—for its mid-priced fashions and homewares. Leggett’s, then a privately-owned retail business, opened its first store in downtown Lynchburg in 1927. It arrived […]