Chrysalis Vineyards

This was our first visit to the new Chrysalis location. The building was beautiful and we were looking forward to the tasting. When we went inside we were ignored by several of the tasting room staff behind the bar. We finally got someone’s attention and were «scheduled» for a tasting twenty minutes later at an outside tasting station.
The young lady who did our tasting was very nice and seemed to have her script well rehearsed. When asked for more detailed questions about the wine or winery, she wasn’t really able to help.
Several of the wines were sweet or off dry, which is not our preference. The red wines were watery or young tasting. We usually like stay after a tasting, purchase food, sip a bottle, and determine what else to purchase. In this case, since we had to pay for our tasting up front, and did not care for the wine, we moved on down the road.
A few notes —
1. Please acknowledge your customers. We know you might be busy, but a simple hello really helps.
2. Not a fan of scheduling tasting. In this case, there was staff standing available and we were waiting for the clock to roll around to our tasting time.
3. Tasting stations outside next to the parking lot is not ideal. Dust from arriving or departing visitors and traffic noise isn’t very enjoyable.
4. The noise inside was incredible with just a few people talking. Sound absorbing materials might help.

I love this winery! The wine is good, the prices are very reasonable. The staff are excellent, always work hard to take care of their return customers. It’s the best wine club in the state with a variety of perks. I would recommend this to anyone who is interested in a great afternoon spent tasting and drinking VA wines!

Chrysalis Vineyards was my first foray into Loudon County wineries since moving to DC last August, and I don’t think I could have started with a winery with a more picturesque atmosphere! I assumed (as you never should!) that since it was Mother’s Day, it wouldn’t be crowded at all, however, even at around 4pm when we arrived it was quite the buzzing place– lots of kids and dogs too. Although it was a blustery day, we still enjoyed sitting in the patio area after our tasting. Unlike other wineries I have visited, the tasting is performed outside under a tent at a nice bar. It seems like they had multiple tastings going on for the sake of the popularity of this vineyard. You do need to sign up for a tasting in the wine shop, where you can later purchase full glasses or bottles of wine to enjoy. We were informed that the tasting would be $ 7 for 7 wines. After we paid, we were directed to join a group outside already in progress, however, our staff member quickly welcomed us in, and essentially allowed us to have a private tasting as the main group finished after our first pour.
The staff member was helpful in possible food pairings and was quite descriptive about what flavors we would taste in each wine. He also informed us that they were building a stone pizza oven and expected to begin serving pizzas soon! My favorite wine I tasted was Sarah’s Patio Red made 100% from the Norton grape. It was on the fruitier side, but not overly sweet as it had a nice acidic balance. As for whites, I enjoyed the Albarino, which had a lot of fruit undertones, including apricot, which I love in a white, sweeter wine.
The one thing that struck me as odd though was how much the staff member doing our tasting was trying to push joining their VIP program. The number of times he brought it up during our tasting bordered on ridiculous. Other than that though, I really enjoyed our tasting, plus the glass of Sarah’s patio red afterwards. This was the perfect spot to enjoy the sunny, albeit blustery, day amidst the picturesque countryside/​mountain-​view atmosphere. I’ll definitely return in the future as both my boyfriend and I agreed this would be a great winery to take visitors to when they come to see us!

Cute little location!
Love the inside of this place.
House wine was good too!
I loved the views of the mountains & there’s lots of seating to choose from.
I wish they served food though but it can be fun to bring your own cheese and crackers.

I loved Chrysalis! I am new to the area so my boyfriend decided to take me to a couple wineries in the area. The view was so gorgeous, the service impeccable, and the most important part was we loved the wine. I think it is so neat that they will soon be making their own cheese on premises. We can’t wait to go back!

This place was really bad. The wine was not classy and they really didn’t do the process right. I would only recommend if you want cheap wine and high prices. I am disgusted.

Jim is one of the best wine tasting host in all of northern Virginia. He provides chrysalis with a lot of history and the taster with a great memory of laughs and good time!

This review is specific to the new tasting room off route 50 in Aldie.
It’s a very nice building and space, but in the winter months it’s a very cold and sterile place — like an IKEA minus the badass Swedish meatballs.
We live local and like their wine and the original facility is good, but clearly they needed to expand. We just wish the new place had a big fireplace and felt more «warm» and intimate. The cheap metal tables and blank white walls only add to the lack of personality to the interior. Clearly it was designed to be a versatile building for weddings and other private events.
Aspen Dale is a far more comfortable setting g and winery, but lacks the convenience to the DC folks.

I’ll keep this short.
Pros: they allow dogs
Marvin was knowledgeable and friendly and entertaining while pouring our wine
Wine is pretty good
Only $ 10 for a tasting
You get to keep your glass
Cons:
No music
No decorations
It looks like a boring ikea room from the inside
Minimal food/​snack selection
No cell phone service
Did not provide oyster crackers with tasting

Visited Chrysalis a few weekends ago. Yes, made the same mistake everyone else did and went to the old one and not the new one. Shame on me for not reading Unilocal sooner ! Anyhow this was my 2^nd time wine tasting with Chrysalis. I went a few years back and thought the wines were good. This trip however left allot more to be desired. First off I think the winery has become far too commercial and has lost its charm. The old location looked more like a residence whereas this new location might be set on a beautiful hill overlooking the pristine Virginia countryside, they now have «scheduled tastings», and the winery facility itself is all new but I found it to be cold and uninviting. Lastly, the wines, they were not what I remembered at all. Not sure what happened to them but I recall loving Sarah’s Table Red then had it this time and it wasn’t good at all. I think the popularity of this winery went to their heads a bit and they lost the charm when they moved… And I can’t tell u what happened to their wines but they were not as good as I remembered ! Not sure I’d go back or recommend them given some of the better wineries in the area.

No restrooms (porta-​potties only), and the guy who did our tasting was utterly obnoxious and misinformed.
Wines used to be pretty good, but have recently gone downhill.
Nice view. Dog and kid friendly. Grills and picnic tables for guests to use.

Chrysalis continues its march toward the top tier of northern VA wineries. Their varied production has been improving across both whites and reds. They are one of the few houses that specializes in the Norton grape — which is why they are particularly close to my heart. While the other wines are good, their Norton based offerings are unique and very tasty. Evidence — I was willing to drive 4 hours to snag a case of Shitz and Giggles, a 100% Norton red that is hands down our favorite Pizza/​casual wine.
Prices have risen about 20−25% per bottle since last year. Like many of their brethren, Chrysalis has tuned their business model to be more of a day-​visit retail wine drinking experience. For years, vineyard based models emphasized tastings that applied to purchases, so you would buy a bunch of wine to take with you. The new tasting facility — which is very large, and now located on a hill overlooking a 360 degree view of the surrounding Louden county rolling hills and pastures is quite beautiful.
I envy my fellow Va-​based wine lovers! The number and quality of local wineries there has truly made it a destination worth your time and money. I hope/​expect Chrysalis will continue to refine Norton into one of the more distinctive «US native» vino’s available in this area.

We came here for an outside fundraiser event. We used to be club members at this winery many years back. Driving up the gravel and pitted roads, we noticed that there had not been any improvements. Seriously, these roads can do some major damage to your car if you don’t drive carefully.
The location is gorgeous. Their wines are wonderful. My personal favorites are the Patio White and Red table wines. As part of our admission fee to the fundraiser, we were given an opportunity to taste the wines. The winery only allotted one tasting area for a group of about 200 people. We waited until closer to 2pm to do our tasting. Unfortunately for us, there was only 1 wine pourer, who didn’t share anything about the wines. She had so many glasses to fill that all she could do was pour samples across an entire wine bar.
The entire facility only has one restroom, and tons of Dons Jons. You need to climb down to the bottom area of the winery to get to the porta potties. That’s how it was over 5 years ago and it’s still the same this year.

Love, love, love Chrysalis! Have only been here twice as we live in PA but both times have been so enjoyable. The staff are wonderful, just super friendly and knowledgeable. The wines are so good, on this trip the Albariño Verde was a delight as was the rosé. The Norton is a perennial favorite along with the Petite Verdot… we love big red. On this trip we were delighted to get to see the harvest and sorting of the Albariño grapes and enjoy a passing-​through thunderstorm from the comfort of the covered patio. Can’t wait to check out the new tasting room.
For those complaining about the «Adults Only» areas… perhaps it’s started to dawn on you that bringing children to a winery is completely unacceptable. I mean, being around your kids makes me want to drink too but luckily I am not legally obligated to be responsible for them. Hire a babysitter for goodness’ sake!

3 stars for wine, 5 stars for location. I really, really wanted to rate them higher, but I just couldn’t find enough wines that I liked. Service was good though.
I’d say the wines here are ‘easy drinking’. Nothing that stands out, nothing that does poorly. Norton fans, you’re in luck. Chrysalis is famous for basically re-​introducing the Norton grape (well, them and Horton) to VA, and have acres and acres of it.
I did like the 2013 Petit Verdot, but not the $ 37 price. Fortunately that was one of the more expensive ones — most others wines here are very reasonably priced.
I will say the wonderful location overlooking a pond makes this this one of the nicest picnic grounds of anywhere I’ve been. But for better or worse, they are moving to a new location soon. While the new building looks wonderful (and you won’t have to queue in line for the single indoor bathroom), it doesn’t have the amazing view of the pond the present one has.
Don’t let me discourage you though; I’m sure I’ll be back when the new tasting room officially opens. And don’t miss out picnicking in the old (present) place while you can.

We were pleasantly surprised here. It had several decent to good wines, and so it should have with its long-​standing history.
You’ll have to make quite a drive up and down a gravel road to get to this locale. It’s almost mysterious how removed it is from the main road.
It was a busy day, apparently, and there isn’t a very big counter for tasting. We waited about 10 minutes before there was a place for us.
The pourer was very kind and kept the descriptions brief but informative. They have an Albariño! This is the only white wine I actually enjoy drinking. I bought one.
We have a suggestion: you have enough wines to offer a white AND a red tasting. We ended up having to buy and split the whole tasting of 12 in order to try the reds. After the Albariño, there were only a couple of wines that were outstanding. If you’re a sweet wine lover, this should be a place to add to your list.
The scenery is beautiful.

This is the first place I remember having a Norton and it was GREAT! Their other wines are amazing too. There seems to be something for everyone.
What stands out to me about this winery is the fact that kids are not allowed in the tasting room. I kinda love that policy. Sometimes, I just want to sip my wine sans kids and dogs running around. I have neither, so sometimes I don’t want to be around them. *shrug*
We did a tasting here with a very large group (it was packed that day). I feel like the tasting was sort of rushed because it was hot outside (we weren’t in the tasting room), but I’d gladly come back here for the full winery experience in the tasting room.

Let me start off with the wine is average at best, all of them are very sweet except for one or two …it sells to the non wine drinker. There are many other options for wineries in Virginia, I suggest you explore all of them before you come here.
1. Not family friendly at all. Do not come with a family you will not be able to do the tasting with significant other because kids are not allowed in tasting room
2. Scheduled tasting. I saw this once in Napa, but outside of that even in one of the best wine regions in the world, Napa, didn’t required you to schedule your tasting.
3. If you are here with a family, then your significant other and you will not be able to do the tasting together, which means it will be 30 min at the least before you can share a bottle together.
The short, this place is lucky to stay in business and as competition grows they will need to change their policy or go out of business. I’m hoping the second of these comes true.

Chrysalis Vineyards is a beautiful vineyard in the Middleburg area. I came here with my family for Mother’s Day weekend. She wanted to go to a wine tasting, and we happily obliged. We were fortunate that Chrysalis was taking full advantage of the warm weather and held their tastings outside. This is how it worked: We went into the wine shop and tasting room and paid for the tasting. They have two tasting options to choose from. We chose the tasting that was $ 7.00 for 7 wines. We then were told to join one of the tents outside for our tasting. I think they try to time it and spread people out so one tent isn’t getting an influx of guests.
Our wine educator/​staff member was fantastic. She was very nice and friendly and kept the mood light and relaxed. She was knowledgeable about the wines, the vineyard, and surrounding property. She also kept the group at a good pace. The standout wines for me were the Albarino (white) and their Rose. Both wines were light and good sipping wines for the warmer weather we are having.
The vineyard has plenty of places to sit and enjoy a bottle of wine after your tasting. You can bring your own food, a blanket, grab a picnic table, and just relax. The view is beautiful. They are also dog friendly and one of the farmer’s dogs roams around. Her name is Shirley and she’s very friendly.

We stopped by yesterday since it was one of the few nearby wineries open during the week. Surprisingly, the place was rather packed for a Tuesday. We only had one person working behind the bar and pouring wine for over five groups. Needless to say, it was pretty hectic and we stayed for over two hours since the tasting pace slowed down significantly as more guests arrived and our tasting assistant’s attention diminished accordingly.
We did one estate ($ 5) and one reserve ($ 10) tasting. The reserve one included all the wines available, so that means I gladly got to taste the fuller bodied reds whereas the estate tasting only included some rather light whites and a rosé. It’s a decent deal, as the reserve tasting offers many wines and you get to keep the glass. Chrysalis has several wines made from norton, and some are quite tasty; although my favorite was probably the rubiana. I prefer full-​bodied and drier wines, so the offerings include in the reserve tasting are much more to my liking.
We also got to taste the traminette, which wasn’t on the tasting menu yet. It was my favorite white there. One word about the signage, though: it sort of weirded me out. There are signs prominently displayed upon entrance to the winery saying parents of children unsupervised for over five minutes will be immediately asked to leave the facility. Inside the tasting room there are similar notices, along with advance warnings for customers not to whine about not getting wines quick enough and not to wander off without paying (maybe the manager thought the joke about feeding the wine-​and-​dash customer to a dog was funny, but I thought it was a bit too much).