A Weekend in Historic Fredericksburg

I turned 30 on Monday guys! We spent the whole weekend celebrating the joy of aging in the charming town of Fredericksburg, Virginia.
We were invited to a friend’s 30th birthday party in Fredericksburg and decided it was the perfect opportunity to make a long weekend of it, driving up on Saturday afternoon and returning Monday evening. It was an action-packed, super fun weekend that made me fall in love with this cute historic town. I can’t wait to go back!
After we checked in to our hotel on Saturday we went downtown for a little exploring. The weather was quite nice that day, and we were able to walk about comfortably for about an hour before temps started to drop.

We peeked into this historic cemetery and did a bit of window shopping. The vibe in downtown Fredericksburg is quite unique, with a bunch of cute and quirky shops and restaurants, ancient throwbacks and, because of the college in town, a lot of young people wandering around.

Did you know Fredericksburg has a French sister city?
We had Ashton with us, so Tom popped into Hyperion Espresso for caffeine and healthy snacks to enjoy outside.
The roasted sweet potato and arugula salad was excellent with a super tangy lemon dressing. Yum.
That evening, we celebrated our friend Ben’s birthday at his Nerdy Thirty surprise party at Capital Ale House. Everyone brought their best nerdy accessories and we had an amazing time.
Not my best look, but it was all in good fun. We had to check on Ashton back at the hotel, so we left relatively early – a good thing considering how much we had on the agenda for the next two days.
Sunday morning we went over to our friend’s house for brunch before heading to Hartwood Winery just outside of town.
As you can see, our warm weather didn’t last long. There was a light dusting of snow in the afternoon, making for a scenic view at the winery.
We had a really fun time tasting at Hartwood, a family run operation dating back to 1989, quite old by Virginia wine standards.
Some of the wines were a little sweet for our taste, but we still enjoyed many of them and especially enjoyed talking to our tasting associate and the only other customer in the tasting room, a retired Marine with a love for wine that matched our own.
We each sipped a glass of wine leisurely while chatting with our new friends and watching the birds dance around outside. Hartwood is a dog friendly winery, so we didn’t have to rush back to check on Ashton, which is always a plus.
That evening we did a bit of bar and restaurant hopping downtown, which I’ll write about soon – a perfect ending to a wonderful day.
The next morning it felt like nine degrees or something similarly obscene, but we were determined to do a bit of sightseeing anyway. We fueled up with breakfast at Mercantile with friends before heading to the Fredericksburg Battlefield for a quick visit.
I’m far from a Civil War buff, but it was interesting to see landmarks from so long ago.
The Sunken Road and stone wall pictured above played a huge role in the second Battle of Fredericksburg and remains in good shape today (read more here).
There was much more to see, but it was simply too cold for that, so we scurried back to the car with plans to return another time.
What do you do when you planned a weekend of travel but it’s too cold to do anything outside? Go to another winery, of course!
Potomac Point Winery was an easy stop on our way back to DC. This winery with its huge corporate tasting room and restaurant is quite the opposite of Hartwood’s boutique charm, but that’s not a bad thing.
Ashton enjoyed overseeing our tasting. I just love dog friendly wineries!
Potomac Point has seven acres of vines on their property but also sources grapes from all over the state and as far as California and Portugal. This is sometimes a pet peeve of mine – if I go to a Virginia winery I want to taste Virginia wine – but I appreciated how transparent they were about where the grapes in each wine were sourced.
Also, the wines were excellent so I can’t fault them too much. I could have purchased six of the twelve wines we tasted (yes, I was feeling pretty good by the end – it was my birthday after all), the majority of which were dry reds with a lot of interesting complexity. The budget prevailed, however, and we came home with only two – the 2013 Custom Label Red, a blend of Sangiovese, Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon and Syrah and the 2014 La Belle Vie White, an off-dry wine that I imagine will be a perfect pairing with spicy foods.
I was absolutely charmed by our weekend in historic Fredericksburg. Stay tuned for more posts about our trip!