The Two Up Wine Down Festival will showcase Virginia wines of all kinds, but it will also shine a spotlight on broader talent from our winemaking region when 11 curators pour 15 wines at the Jefferson School on October 29 from 3 to 6pm.
Tracey Love, one of the event’s organizers and the marketing and sales head at Blenheim Vineyards, calls the afternoon “an opportunity to highlight the work of underrepresented communities of all sorts.”
Grace Estate Winery’s Assistant Winegrower Noe Garcia Corona says, “it has been hard to find people who want to bring the entire wine community together. In the past, sometimes vineyards have been stuck in a bubble.”
When asked what it means to be part of a more inclusive community, Garcia Corona says it makes him “feel comfortable, it’s an opportunity to meet passionate people who are contributing to the wider community of wines in Virginia, and it makes us better able to advise each other.” Today’s wider professional wine community better serves all types of people who are interested in wine, he says. “That is how you get more sales.”
Garcia Corona adds that the event is not only a chance to highlight Grace Estate’s wines, but also to impart his vineyard’s formal wine philosophy: “Everything we need to make great wine is already in the soil and the fruit itself, and so we strive to produce a product free of outside inputs.”
Garcia Corona and winegrowing partner Robbie Corpora use minimal, mostly organic insecticides, employ a chemical-free period before harvest, and depend on indigenous yeasts and bacteria on the grape skins for the final taste. They use no refrigeration and minimal sulfites. The result is popular—about 80 percent of the grapes grown at Grace Estate are purchased by other winemakers.
Love and Reggie Leonard, winemaker and co-creator of the fest, tout the many Charlottesville- and Shenandoah Valley-area wineries that women and BIPOC producers have founded or work for. Some are even a one-person show, like Seidah Armstrong, who owns Sweet Vines Farm Winery, and makes and sells her wines. “She does it all,” Love says. (And if you’re looking for some out-of-town star power, NBA Hall of Famer Dwayne Wade, a co-partner of Wade Cellars, is also on the program.)
The Wine Down is an offshoot of local efforts that continue year-round, Love says. “The name is an homage to our incredible Commonwealth, Virginia (Two Up, Two Down). The V is two fingers up (like a peace sign) and the A is two fingers down for VA and we riffed on that idea for the festival name and TUWD design by Tim Skirven.”
The Oenoverse, a wine club based at Blenheim Vineyards that includes people from historically underrepresented and excluded communities, and a related nonprofit group called the Veraison Project (volunteer wine industry professionals committed to making the industry more diverse and equitable) chose the curators for Two Up Wine Down.