A Visit to La Viña Winery

The last time we visited La Viña Winery it was for a wine tasting and jazz festival, back in 1998. After an afternoon spent tasting and listening and watching little kids dance spontaneously in the hot New Mexican sun, we bought some wine from where it was being sold at the time, out of the vineyard owner's little garage. We brought home our wine glasses, the bottles of wine, and a poster. It was a great experience, and we were always reminded of it when passing the framed poster on the wall of our New Hampshire house, or when drinking from our cool little La Viña wine glasses.

A lot has changed in the past ten years. We have gotten older (of course!), I am retired and Beez is getting close to his own retirement, and we have have moved from New Hampshire back to New Mexico. We took Auntie Bucksnort for a ride the other day, down to the little vineyard we remembered so well.

The wine is no longer sold out of a little garage

Wow! A lot has changed at the vineyard, too! In place of the little garage, there was a big villa-like building with a lovely patio and a beautiful tasting room. We tasted, we bought, and we came away with posters and wine glasses, just as before. The charming hostess, who was a little homesick for her native Chile, explained that the owners had worked tirelessly for the last 20 years with little time off to make the vineyard what it is today--New Mexico's oldest winery, producing some of New Mexico's finest wines.

We plan to go back for the next Blues and Jazz Festival in April, for sure, but what really sounds charming to me is the Music on the Patio series. From April to November you can bring a picnic of your own and enjoy a free concert on the patio, while drinking some delicious La Viña wine, meeting a few new friends, perhaps, and gazing out at the wonderful mountain view. It sounds very civilized to me. Won't you come along, too?