While most of us have been trying to keep our distance over the past year, there’s been lots of pairing up in the wine industry. Area winemakers have been pursuing both formal and informal collaborations as a natural expression of their intellectual curiosity and creative spirit. And as you can see from the sampling of collabs below, these projects also involve local breweries, cideries, and distilleries.
Blenheim Vineyards and Fine Creek Brewing Company
blenheimvineyards.com
finecreekbrewing.com
In 2018, when Gabe Slagle was head brewer for Fine Creek Brewing Company in Powhatan, he visited Blenheim Vineyards and left some beer for winemaker Kirsty Harmon. This simple exchange led to the development of a professional friendship, as Harmon wrote back to say thank you and offered to provide grape skins if the brewery ever wanted to use them. When Slagle visited Blenheim again, he brought along Brian Mandeville, Fine Creek’s current head brewer, and the collaborations began in force.
Over the years, Blenheim has had the opportunity to do wine pop-ups at Fine Creek, and has served the beer at its winery during special weekend events. On the production side, Fine Creek has used several different varieties of grape pressings in its beer, including viognier and rkatsiteli. There have even been some rosé-style beers that utilized skins from red grapes. According to Harmon, Fine Creek has “really gotten creative with how they have been able to incorporate our grapes into their beers.” In addition, “they are just really great people,” and she is hopeful that the collaboration will continue.
Lightwell Survey and Troddenvale Cider
lightwellsurvey.com
troddenvale.com
Winemaker Ben Jordan is no stranger to co-fermentation, where different grape varieties are combined to ferment together into a final product. In a recently released collaboration between Lightwell Survey and Troddenvale Cider, which is run by Will and Cornelia Hodges and located in Warm Springs, the concept goes a step further when grapes and apples are fermented as a single mixture.
For the project, Lightwell contributed petit manseng and vidal blanc grapes and Troddenvale contributed Harrison and Golden Russet apples. (All the fruit was grown in the Shenandoah Valley.) The juice from this fruit was combined, with care taken to ensure that the resulting mix was exactly 50 percent wine and 50 percent cider. Then, each party took half of the mix, and the rest of the fermentation, aging, and bottling was done separately. While the producers share a low-intervention approach, and the resulting beverages have similarities, it is interesting to see how the same original juice can yield different results in the hands of a winemaker versus a cidermaker. The Lightwell version was fermented in stainless steel with a bit of sulfur dioxide added at bottling. The Troddenvale was fermented in neutral oak with no sulfur additions. Both are selling two-packs featuring the paired products.
When asked why they decided to do this, Jordan says, “These grape/apple fermentations are something we are both interested in, we are each a fan of what the other is doing, and honestly, we were looking to have fun.”
Joy Ting Wine and Spirit Lab Distilling
@joytingwine
spiritlabdistilling.com
A quick survey of the world’s wine regions reveals that winemaking is always accompanied by distillation of wine into brandy. It’s a natural partnership and, at least historically, it was always made from local grapes grown in the region. Inspired by world-famous brandies from the Cognac and Armagnac regions of France, winemaker Joy Ting (this writer’s wife) and master distiller Ivar Aass of Charlottesville’s Spirit Lab Distilling are collaborating to make a Virginia brandy that they call Esprit Joyeux.
Aass and Ting are both focused on the brandy as a true expression of Virginia. As Ting explains, “The grapes are grown in the Shenandoah Valley. They are specifically managed and picked with brandy production in mind. After fermentation into wine, distillation occurs at Spirit Lab. Finally, the brandy is aged in barrels made from wood that comes from a forest in Culpeper.”
Every one of the above-mentioned partners goes out of their way to express their love for each other’s products—and all of them speak highly of the production quality and skill level of their collaborators. More notably, there is frequent mention of the great ideas, character, and heart of the people behind the products. It’s clear that there are many rewards for these producers in pursuing these projects beyond the final product that is imbibed.
Ultimately, though, it’s area drink lovers who truly benefit from these collaborations. Creativity and curiosity are a wonderful driver of the industry, but finding partners who are simpatico can truly spur things forward. These cooperative projects, especially ones that cross the boundaries of the wine, beer, cider, and spirits categories, result in new ideas, new flavors, and even entirely new categories of beverages, making it an exciting time to drink locally.