The Virginia Wine Page

10-23-2002  Excellent news.  I mean just GREAT news regarding Virginia Wines online.  No, you can’t buy Virginia wine from out of state yet – but they’re thinking about it!

I refer instead to the fact the VDACS (Now Virginia Wine Marketing Office) finally has its act together, and has an online directory of Virginia wines. That’s right, this “unofficial” page is no longer necessary.  You can get what you need from www.virginiawines.org !

When I started this page in 1997, it was the only place you could get authoritative information about Virginia wineries.  Updating it on a regular basis, however, was not something I could place high on my list of priorities, so I was hoping that at some point the Commonwealth would step up and provide an online version of their Directory.  There was a commercial site up for a while (it may still be around, not sure); but it charged the wineries to represent their information.  I refused to do that, and refused to go away until there was a FREE place for the wineries to provide you with a way to get to them from the Internet.

This has been a labor of love for me, but sadly is one of dozens such labors – and has fallen into a state of disrepair.  Happily, the wineries are better represented by the VDACS site, and I heartily recommend you bookmark that site for your Virginia Wine needs.  Enjoy, and I’ll see you by the barrels…!

As You Like It Configurations

Silly people–and there were many, not only in enemy countries–might discount the force of the United States. Some said they were soft, others that they would never be united. They would fool around at a distance. They would never come to grips. They would never stand blood-letting. Their democracy and system of recurrent elections would paralyze their war effort. They would be just a vague blur on the horizon to friend or foe. Now we should see the weakness of this numerous but remote, wealthy and talkative people.

But I had studied the American Civil War, fought out to the last desperate inch. American blood flowed in my veins. I thought of a remark which Edward Grey had made to me more than 30 years before–that the United States is like “a gigantic boiler. Once the fire is lighted under it there is no limit to the power it can
generate.”
—Winston Churchill, on his reaction to the news that Pearl Harbor had been bombed.

Dear Madam:

I have been shown in the files of the War Department a statement of the Adjutant General of Massachusetts that you are the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle. I feel how weak and fruitless must be any words of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering to you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save. I pray that our heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom.

Yours very sincerely and respectfully,

Abraham Lincoln

November 21, 1864