It's National Tourism Week: Wine Dogs Recommend Visiting a Virginia Winery or Festival

Where better to celebrate National Travel and Tourism Week (the first full week in May) this weekend than at a great Virginia winery?

Need help deciding which of Virginia's more than 140 wineries to visit? Check out the Wine Dog reviews, or try a festival. The Mount Vernon Spring Wine Festival brings together 16 wineries along with sunset tours of the mansion and jazz on the lawn on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday evenings (Munchkin's Mom will be pouring for Philip Carter on Friday). Saturday is the Wine and Craft Festival along Main Street in Front Royal, with 16 participating wineries, along with an impressive collection of local Virginia crafts.

Virginia Wine Dogs'

Fun Wine Tourism Facts

1. Travel and Leisure Magazine recently named Virginia one of the top five up and coming wine regions in the world.

2. More than one million visitors each year include a trip to a winery as part of their Virginia vacation.

3. In 2009, Virginia's wineries sold almost 400,000 cases of wine, totaling approximately $80 million in retail sales.

4. Virginia's wine industry contributed $347 million to the state's economy in 2005, including job creation, taxes, and tourism dollars, according to a 2007 study.

5. With more than 160 wineries, Virginia ranks fifth (behind only CA, NY, OR, and WA) based on the number of wineries in each state -- quite impressive considering Virginia had just six wineries as recently as 1979.

6. Virginia has 12 wine trails and 15 wine regions. To view them, visit www.virginiawine.org/regions.

7. Norton is Virginia's native grape and is the oldest grape in North America. Several wineries produce wine from the Norton grape (for an excellent example, check out Veramar's Norton).

8. Virginia ranks seventh nationally in grape production, harvesting 7,000 tons of wine grapes with a total crop value of $10.4 million.

9. Virginia wines are impressing critics across the country and around the world. Barboursville wines were served to the Queen of England when she visited Virginia in 2007 for the 400th Anniversary of the settling of Jamestown.

10. Virginia's first vineyard was planted in 1608 in Jamestown, where settlers were required to grow and tend to 10 grape vines to make wine.