Cocoa Pod in Mexico. Find out more here
Taste our tradition - Embrace and savor history.
Sounds good, doesn’t it?
We will be at Chrysalis Vineyards as part of their 7th Annual Norton Wine & Bluegras Festival. Bring a friend and enjoy good music, good wine and good chocolate on Saturday and Sunday from 10AM to 6PM. Of course there is a lot more to it as well. More info on the festival is here.
See you tomorrow or on Sunday!
I know, I know ….. I am letting you know so late - but - we have been incredibly busy this week and do not only prepare for the upcoming tasting at our favorite wine store in Alexandria [-> Unwined], but also for the Wine festival in Leesburg the next week - more on that later though.
So, we hope to see y’all at Unwined on Sunday 09.09.2007 from 5:30pm - 7:30pm …. there will be plenty of good wine and chocolate - who could resist?
See you there!
For Labor Day we will be present at both of our favorite wineries to serve you all of our chocolate confections and wine pate de fruit. If you had nothing big planned yet - this is the perfect opportunity to enjoy a sunny day out west in horse country, sipping some great Virginia wine and enjoy our complimentary chocolate with it.
Come on over and join us on the weekend, specifically on Saturday, September 1st at Pearmund Cellars and The Winery at La Grange around 12 to 5pm….
Don’t miss it - See you there! 
Just as a little reminder:
Tomorrow we will be at Cork and Fork in Gainesville, VA to give a complimentary chocolate & wine tasting. In addition, the Virginia Gateway community will be celebrating a “Midsummer’s Night of Music†with performances by New Day Rising and The Josh Burgess Band.
Our class on Saturday is completely sold out and we already got some requests for more 
As we are preparing the folders for our students and outline the different processes for the groups, the idea of having all-day classes becomes more realistic and we might just do more in the future That would most likely not happen before the ‘big’ season though, because we will just be too busy - any helpers out there?
Snapshot from earlier this week as follow-up on the last post …
We got away for a weekend to visit our parents in Ohio and since I have never been up to the lake that close, we decided to drive up to one of the islands and have some wine and enjoy ourselves there. Regarding the wine … well - it really makes you appreciate Pearmund Cellars and the Winery at La Grange I won’t call any names up there though … Later that day we went to a winery called Mon Ami and their Cabernet Sauvignon tasted really good along with the orange crusted salmon I had.
Anyway, what I wanted to mention is that we were walking across the island and found a chocolate museum. Skeptic as I am we went in and although I won’t spent any time describing the chocolate confections (more traditional, cream based american style) I have to say that the ‘museum’ is kind of cute and interesting. It is very small (one room) but it showcases a lot of older candy boxes from the US and it is nice to see the development of chocolate and candies here. I walked out surprised and was wondering if I would ever want to remind people of chocolate history in a future retail space - just another thing to add onto my wish list
Back at home I tried a new red from Australia (Red Belly Shiraz) and it paired quite
well with our Liberty Squares whiskey chocolates.
Oh, and although I did not make any pictures of the chocolate museum, I have some nice ones here from a guy telling us about the battle of lake Erie in 1813.
… it was yesterday. We were out and about at The Winery at La Grange and gave a tasting of our Wine Pate de Fruit and the Libertysquares. Everybody enjoyed them and we actually stayed longer than planned - not only because of all the hungry mouths to fill, but also to get some goat cheese, crackers and wine and to sit outside in the shade, on the grass and just relax for a little bit. Now this is how I like working
Today we made more Pate de Fruit, because we were completely out. We will probably be at both wineries again on July the 4th to celebrate and enjoy Independence Day. Melanie and I will split up, but only for 3-4 hours or so, then re-unite to enjoy the fireworks in Manassas. Step by and have some wine and chocolate, or see if you can spot us in Oldtown Manassas.
Happy 4th of July everyone!
We will be tasting our chocolate confections and Wine Pate de Fruit tomorrow from Noon until 5pm at our friends over at Pearmund Cellars. Pearmund Cellars is celebrating their 4th year after the grand opening of the winery and if you haven’t anything planned yet, why not relax and enjoy the weekend with a good glass of wine and some of our confections?
We introduced our wine pate de fruit two weeks ago and they are a hit. We will also be sampling all four flavors made with wine from Pearmund Cellars. The wine content is about 15-20% and other than that we only use fruit puree, sugar, glycose and pectin to make our pate de fruit. These are the fruit / wine pairings:
Green Apple / Chardonnay,
Pink Grapefruit / Viognier,
Red Raspberry / Ameritage and
Cassis / Lisa’s Merlot
See you tomorrow!
First close up picture of the pate de fruit:
The recipes are figured out and the only one needing a little tweaking is the Cassis/Lisa’s Merlot one. Right now it just melts on your tongue - and if you are not careful enough it also melts while handling it
We also prepped for our newest product next week, which is still ‘top secret’ …. all the lights are go though and it should be a big success
Tomorrow we’ll be having a tasting at Massimo’s Il Vino in Fairfax, come swing by and have some fun with us - maybe pick some nice italian red for dad together with a box of chocolates? If you can’t make it to Fairfax, see us on Sunday for the Wine & Jazz Festival in Manassas, it will be our first appearance and I am sure everyone will have a blast - I know I will, since there is wine involved!
We teamed up with Pearmund Cellars and the Winery at LaGrange to produce Pate de Fruit with their wines. We are using two whites and two reds with cassis, raspberry, pink grapefruit and green apple puree. The result is delicious and refreshing and well worth a try I think. We’ll be giving a tasting of all of the flavors and also our regular chocolate assortment upcoming Sunday on the Manassas Wine & Jazz Festival.
We are really excited and the weather plays well too it seems - hope to see you on Sunday!
