Four years ago, the tasting room at Grace Estate Winery was in the barn, but you’d only get there if you could find it. Lucky explorers sometimes had the chance to sip wine in the old, abandoned silo, retrofitted with benches and string lights. But during the harvest and grape crush, the winery could not hold tastings where production occurred, and it needed a sustainable solution. When winemaker Jake Busching joined the Grace Estate team in 2011, he envisioned a different sort of tasting room, and on May 1, the new building opened to the public.
Breaking ground in April 2014 to build the storage cellar yielded a lesson in Monticello terroir. “It was like digging up red clay ice cream—there was nothing down there but clay, barely even a rock,” Busching recalled. How fascinating to think of the acres of surrounding vines, each one pushing their roots ever downward through the same, thick clay. And the vines truly surround you. “It’s like you’re sitting somewhere in Sonoma,” said Busching. “Everywhere you look, you’re looking at grape vines.”
In addition to choosing a spot among the grapes, the winery finished construction without disturbing any of the old oak trees. All the planning and excavation paid off, and now they have a new building to showcase their wine.
The chic, airy design plays with natural light and emanates a clean, rustic ambiance. You’d never guess much of the space is crafted from reclaimed materials. Discarded bricks fashion a fireplace that will be a cozy nook during the next polar vortex. Recycled church pews amidst recycled wood trim create a sitting area perfect for musing. Virginia wine industry veterans might recognize the front doors as a salvaged score from the former Acorn Hill Winery (now Early Mountain Vineyards). Wine barrel light fixtures crafted by the winery staff illuminate the space, and all the pieces come together in a tidy, sensible way that defies their hodgepodge origins. Call it modern Southern. Those with nostalgia for the more rustic silo halcyon days can look up and see the same sky through a few strategic skylights, but without the bug bites.
What will you find at the bar? The Grace Estate team will almost always be pouring chardonnay, vidal blanc and Busching’s favorite, tannat. They also have several small batch bottlings stored beneath the tasting room in a bonded cellar (that’s why they dug so deep into the red clay last year). They’ll bring a few of these special releases into rotation every few weeks. Rather than lugging the wine up stairs, the bottles are transported upwards on a dumbwaiter, similar to how Thomas Jefferson accessed his wine cellar from the Monticello dining room a short drive away. Grace Estate has prepared a special limited edition boxed set release to commemorate the new tasting room. The special wines are Odo, a dense, powerful blend of tannat and petit verdot, and Adeliza, a late harvest petit manseng. There are only about a hundred sets, and they’ll be released on Father’s Day.
Looking around the new space, Busching reflected on the new tasting room. “This ain’t no silo,” he said. — Erin Scala
Visitors can explore the Grace Estate Winery tasting room between 11am and 5:30pm on Thursday through Monday.