DATE: Sunday, September 14, 1997            TAG: 9709140060

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B3   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY PAM STARR, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH                    LENGTH:   73 lines

OCEANFRONT NEPTUNE FESTIVAL UNCORKS ITS FIRST WINE TASTING

If Saturday was any indication of longevity, the first Neptune Wine Festival will be around for eons.

Beautiful weather, an eager crowd, live music, and the Atlantic Ocean as a backdrop set the stage for a six-hour flurry of wine tasting and socializing.

About 2,000 people came and went throughout the day, lining up six deep at the long white tables on either side of the 24th Street Park. The wine tasters patiently waited their turn for a sample of a Virginia chardonnay or a cabernet sauvignon.

King Neptune - the vice mayor, Will Sessoms - and his court made a special appearance along with Mayor Meyera Oberndorf at the Saturday-only event.

The wine tasting was part of the 26th annual Neptune Festival, which began Sept. 6 and runs through Sept. 28 and celebrates the end of the Oceanfront's tourist season.

The throngs of sun-drenched wine enthusiasts kept representatives of the 15 wineries hopping all afternoon. Patrick Duffeler, product manager for Williamsburg Winery, uncorked bottles of wine as fast as they could be poured. The Williamsburg Winery makes more than 600,000 bottles of wine every year.

``We brought over 50 cases of wine,'' Duffeler said. ``We hit about 12 of these festivals a year. This is one of the nicer ones.''

He watched a co-worker pour a Governor's White, Williamsburg's best-selling wine, into a commemorative glass given to each attendee to keep.

``If you're a purist, you're supposed to spit it out and not swallow,'' he said. ``But I haven't seen too much of that today.''

Wine tasters also could buy a bottle to drink there or take home. That's what Dow Phipps did. After sampling a charval from Tarara Winery & Vineyard, he bought a bottle to share with friends.

``This is very smooth and fruity - I don't like dry wines,'' he said. But the label clearly stated that the charval was a dry white wine, Phipps was told.

``Well, it's dry but it doesn't taste it,'' he said, laughing.

His friend, Keith Hope, said that he preferred beer but that the charval was ``harmoniously smooth.'' Wife Elizabeth Hope said they'd like to learn more about wines.

``I drink beer, but wine is an acquired taste,'' she said. ``We're trying to mature our tastes.''

They should have joined Chrissy Marks and her fiance, Will Sokol, who travel across Virginia frequently for other wine festivals. They don't consider themselves experts, but Marks offered some advice to novices.

``You should rinse or eat something in between tasting a red and a white wine,'' she said. ``And you should really let the wine flow all around your mouth for the full flavor, instead of sipping it.''

Marks and Sokol stood in the grass drinking a ``very nice'' chardonnay from Barboursville Vineyards and eating off a small fruit and cheese plate they had bought.

``We've tried most of the wineries, but we have three more to go,'' Sokol said with a chuckle. ``That's why we stopped for this.''

Organizers of the event were ecstatic at the size of the crowd, the cooperative weather and the whole artsy idea of having a wine tasting at the Oceanfront.

Sal DaBiero, chairman of the wine festival, called the event a ``new dimension.''

``Not only are we proud of our wines - we can compete with any winery in the nation,'' he said. ``I can't think of a better venue than this. The Oceanfront in particular needed this.'' ILLUSTRATION: PHILIP HOLMAN photos

Tena Thompson, left, and his wife, Ronnie, of Haymarket, Va., were

among 2,000 to swirl a taste of wine and offer an opinion on 15

Virginia state wineries. The Neptune Festival runs through Sept. 28.

Williamsburg Winery volunteer Carolyn Franklin pours wine for

Neptune Festival-goers Saturday. Fifteen wineries participated in

the event.

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