Author: Erin Scala

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Living

Growing interest: Shenandoah Valley’s unique climate spurs its wine resurgence

The Shenandoah Valley’s Bluestone Vineyard’s 2016 Petit Manseng and 2014 Cadenza were big winners in the 2018 Virginia Governor’s Cup Awards. Photo courtesy Bluestone Yineyard

Today, we’re seeing a wine renaissance in the Shenandoah Valley. But the history of wine growing in this region goes deeper than you might suspect.

As early as the late 1700s and early 1800s, Samuel Kercheval described how privacy-seeking neighbors obstructed horse paths by tying grape vines across them. These were likely wild grape vines growing up trees.

Kercheval also described wedding traditions in early 1800s Rockingham County, which included luxuries like fatted calves, lambs, and “wine, if it could be had.” A common wedding tradition involved stealing the bride’s shoe. And if a guest managed to get the shoe, he’d be paid a “bounty of a bottle of wine.”

Some 19th-century records in Harrisonburg, circa 1826, note that women washed their clothing in a popular spring, and hung it to dry on grape vines that had been trained as clotheslines. Distraught neighbors passed a law making this illegal.

When Abraham Scherdlin emigrated from France to Rockingham County sometime around 1813, could he have known that the vines he planted on a hillside east of Harrisonburg would kick off a pre-Prohibition zeal for Virginia winemaking in the Shenandoah Valley?

By 1866, Hockman and Forrer planted six acres (5,000 vines) on or near the Scherdlin site. In 1867, two companies planned large vineyards at or near Mount Clinton, and by 1868 Rockingham County grew several native and hybrid grape varieties including Norton, Iona, and Concord.

Within a few years, a Shenandoah Valley wine boom was well underway. Vineyards popped up in New Market, Hopkins’ Mill, Timberville, Linville Creek, and Bridgewater, and most farms in the area also had vines on the property.

Then prohibition all but wiped out interest in grapes in the Shenandoah Valley—and it’s taken almost a century to recapture the grape-growing excitement. But why is the valley so compelling to today’s winemakers?

The Shenandoah Valley AVA is great for grape growing because of its microclimates, which appeal to winegrowers for temperature and precipitation reasons. On average, sites on the slopes are 10 degrees cooler than sites on the valley floor—this allows grapes to attain higher acidity, which is generally good for winemaking. Enologist Joy Ting explains that the cool nights, in particular, make the difference. “Grapes will metabolize malic acid at night, and do so faster when it is warm, and slower when it is cold. The Shenandoah Valley enjoys cool nights, even after hot days, thus better acid,” says Ting.

Winemakers like John and Susan Kiers at Ox-Eye helped lead the way when they planted their first vineyards in 1999. The Kiers planted on limestone, a soil historically great for pinot noir. They also work with riesling and lemberger, and make stunning versions of both.

Bluestone Vineyard takes its name from a type of Shenandoah limestone, which defines their terroir. Winemaker Lee Hartman, a powerful voice for Shenandoah Valley winegrowing, encourages locavores to see wine as a local food. “The Shenandoah Valley is a fairly undiscovered wine growing region, even by the people who live here,” says Hartman. “In many regards it’s one of the best places to grow grapes with higher elevation, less rain, cooler temperatures, and an already existing farming culture. Neighboring wineries are farther apart than in Loudoun and Albemarle.” Hartman laments that in the market, even in places with a strong wine presence, wines from the Shenandoah Valley are often seen as “too remote to be seen on their shelves and tasting lists, regardless of a lower sticker price.” But we should see a shift in this trend as consumer regard increases for these unique and high-quality wines.

Golden year

The Shenandoah Valley micro- climate is hospitable to cabernet sauvignon, lemberger, petit manseng, petit verdot, pinot noir, and riesling, among many other varietals.

As winemakers in the region take advantage of ideal vineyard locations, many are turning the fruits of their labor into gold. In 2018, CrossKeys Vineyards’ 2015 Ali d’Oro was one of 12 wines that outscored more than 440 entrants to make the Virginia Wineries Association 2018 Governor’s Cup Case, in addition to winning a Gold Governor’s Cup award, along with Muse Vineyards’ 2016 Thalia and Bluestone Vineyard’s 2016 Petit Manseng and 2014 Cadenza.

Erin Scala owns In Vino Veritas Fine Wines, and is the sommelier at Common House. She holds the Wine & Spirit Education Trust Level 4 Diploma in Wines & Spirits, is studying for the Master of Wine, and is a Certified Sake Specialist. Scala writes about beverages on her blog, thinking-drinking.com.

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Living

Soil boom: Keswick’s Beacon Tree Vineyard sets down roots

Once their newly planted vineyard becomes established, Jonathan Baird and Mariana Bell plan to make wine under their own label at Keswick’s Beacon Tree Vineyard. Image: John Robinson

In the spirit of a barn-raising, friends from around the country gathered to help at a vineyard planting party. It was April of this year, and the crowd came armed with s’mores, guitars, babies, potato salad, and sunscreen. Once tents were pitched in a neighboring field, I trekked through a patch of woods to get to the planting site. This was also high morel season, and in the forest my eyes routinely scanned for mushroom treasure (none found), but as the ground transformed from a dry leafy carpet to a verdant sun-splashed lawn, I looked up. We had arrived at Beacon Tree Vineyard. Perched at the crest of a series of gently sloping hills, to the left, the vineyard disappeared into the same forest from which we had just emerged.

Underfoot, silty loam laid a solid foundation for something special. In geology-speak, this kind of semi-permeable and well-draining soil is called Manteo. Once used primarily for corn and hay production in Virginia, Manteo soils have proven to be superior sites for cabernet franc. As with other regional farms, the Beacon Tree vineyard land has a history of hay production and in the early 1900s, was a dairy farm.

Local musician Mariana Bell grew up on this farm, and when her family purchased it in the late 20th century, it functioned as “a working horse farm and steeplechase breeding operation in addition to cattle production,” says Bell.

She has fond memories of the old cedar tree that “stands in the middle of the field as a beacon,” says Jonathan Baird, Bell’s husband, as he explains the significance of the vineyard’s namesake tree.

Though this is the first time they’ve planted a vineyard, Baird comes from a solid wine background in retail and restaurants. With Bell’s close ties to this land, and Baird’s love of all things wine, the Beacon Tree vineyard, seems destined. But getting to this point was anything but a clear-cut journey.

Baird studied art history at UVA and cooked at local Charlottesville restaurants before moving to Los Angeles and diving deep into wine at Greenblatt’s Deli-Restaurant & Fine Wine Shop, a historic restaurant and retail shop in Hollywood. After three years at Greenblatt’s, he joined the sommelier team at Hatfield’s, a now-closed restaurant in L.A. known for its unique wine program. Baird worked for sommelier Peter Birmingham before taking the helm of the wine program in 2011. During his four year tenure at Hatfield’s, the program ranked as a semi-finalist for the James Beard Best Wine Program award, and Wine Enthusiast featured the establishment as one of America’s 100 Best Wine Restaurants.

Baird describes his approach to wine list creation as “familiar yet different. Many of the wines were obscure, but I’d make sure you’d get what you wanted flavor-wise.” His first foray into agriculture on Keswick land follows a similar ethos. In addition to the newly planted Beacon Tree Vineyard (which will not produce commercial fruit until at least 2020), there’s an organic garden of diversified crops that echoes the description “familiar yet different”: heirloom tomatoes the size of golf balls that glow half green and half purple, watermelons with pale snowy flesh, okra that bleeds the color of a fire engine, and fist-sized yellow squashes the shape of acorns and concentrated with earthy flavor.

When Baird and Bell decided to plant a vineyard, Baird signed up for viticulture classes with Jake Busching at PVCC, and took a crash course in practical grape farming. Acclaimed local vineyard consultant Chris Hill stopped by the site as well, and “talked me out of growing syrah,” says Baird with a smile. After digging soil pits with geologist Ernest “Bubba” Beasley, they came up with a plan.

With seven acres dedicated to the vineyard, four are planted with cabernet franc, one is planted with chardonnay; the remaining two will likely become chenin blanc. Chenin blanc?

“In my brain, if franc does well, we should be able to do chenin as a Loire-like counterpart,” says Baird. “Cabernet franc and chenin blanc grow together in France’s Loire Valley, and though Virginia has imported and committed to the cabernet franc part of the equation, there is almost no local chenin blanc.”

Poking around through Bell and Baird’s wine cellar, you’ll discover the dedication to chenin blanc, chardonnay, and cabernet franc is a pretty serious thing. They have the benchmark bottlings from around the world, and plan to have their fruit stand up next to the best. They’ll experiment with the first 2019 harvest, then sell grapes to Jake Busching beginning with the 2020 vintage.

A newly planted vineyard is not a pretty site; it’s certainly not the bucolic wedding backdrop you might imagine. Baby grape vines look like thick twigs sticking up from the ground, gnarly little things rising up from mounds of clumped topsoil. Soon after planting a new vineyard, the landscape is temporarily interrupted as each vine is enshrouded with a ‘grow tube’ to protect it through the early months as the roots stretch deeper toward the Manteo. But despite the early aesthetics, the Beacon Tree site has some sort of indescribable X-factor going for it. When you step onto the vineyard, there is a palpable sacredness to the place. You get the same feeling when you first put your feet on a site like Corton in Burgundy, Falling Man in New York, or Bloom’s Field in Santa Barbara—you know instinctively that, no matter what, special wine will come from here.

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Living

Dennis Horton was an innovative pioneer for Virginia wine

Dennis Horton and his wife, Sharon, with their Viognier vines at the Horton Vineyards property in January 2015. Photo by Erin Scala

Dennis Horton of Horton Vineyards died June 19 at age 73, but his enduring vision for Virginia wine lives on. Horton helped shape a generation of winemakers by introducing them to now-iconic Virginia wines made from Viognier, Norton, Rkatsiteli, Tannat grapes and more. In a 2016 article about Horton Vineyards, Horton referenced his “willingness to confront the unknown,” and that experimental ethos that radiates from Horton Vineyards continues to influence winemakers around the state.

Those who worked with him in the early days remember being awestruck by the results.

“The first Viognier that Dennis put in the ground was fantastic,” says winemaking consultant Brad McCarthy, who worked with Horton in the 1990s. “We hadn’t really experienced anything like this—nobody around here had. Back in the 1990s, there wasn’t much Viognier in the world. At the end of the day the tanks du jour that were spectacular—they were Viognier.”

In a 2015 interview, Horton told C-VILLE he had been influenced to plant Viognier after visiting the Rhône Valley, in France, and also after reading a key work about the grape by wine writer Jancis Robinson. The ensuing kinetic excitement around Viognier captured the attention of attendees at the U.S. Wine Bloggers Conference in Virginia in 2011, one of who was Robinson.

“He is a great innovator,” Robinson wrote of Horton in a 2011 article. “He makes a sparkling version of Viognier.”

Things came full circle that year when—exactly 20 years after Horton planted the first and oldest Viognier vineyard in Virginia—the international wine scene recognized Horton’s Viognier, and Viognier became the official signature grape of Virginia.

But it wasn’t just Viognier. “He’s brought us Tannat, Norton,” McCarthy says. “There are whole wineries based on growing Norton now, thanks to Dennis Horton.”

Vineyard expert and wine sensei Lucie Morton remembers his Cabernet Franc, and the time Horton consulted with her about some suspicious Cabernet Franc in his vineyard (most of it turned out to be Cabernet Franc, but she found some Cabernet Sauvignon and Zinfandel erroneously mixed in by the vine nursery).

“I’ll always love him for bringing Cabernet Franc to Virginia,” says Morton, and “for him to get started with grapes that have become so important to us and the mid-Atlantic region.” Morton also appreciates how he introduced “wonderful vinifera grape varieties that have adapted so well, in addition to historic Native American varieties.”

Many winegrowers tend to have strong opinions about which grape species are best. If you’re a wine drinker, you’ve probably tasted many wines of the vinifera species—a European species that includes many international varieties such as Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon. Native American species tend to be used mostly as root stocks, though for centuries in the pre-Prohibition era, they had been made into wine in the mid-Atlantic region. Hybrids (crosses between two species) are usually the heartiest to grow in marginal climates.

In his vineyards, Horton nurtured a level playing field for grape varieties of different species. This was an extraordinary thing to do in the 1990s, when vinifera activists vociferously protested the planting of hybrids and, to a lesser extent, Native American grape species. Morton remembers extreme “tension between vinifera and hybrids” when she published her book, Winegrowing in Eastern America, in 1985.

In this heated environment, Horton rediscovered Norton—a grape native to Virginia but at that time no longer grown here—and brought it from his home state of Missouri back to Virginia. He touched off a local pride for Norton, and many Virginia wineries now have a special focus on the grape. The Horton Norton remains somewhat of a calling card for local Virginia wine.

The Virginia wine industry benefited from Horton’s many successes, but learned equally valuable lessons from his failures.

“Dennis Horton probably ripped out more vines in failure than some people have actually put in the ground,” McCarthy says. “That’s what an experimentalist Dennis Horton was. I don’t know how many people really appreciate that about him.”

Emerging wine regions are up against learning curves, and the first wave of winemakers tend to absorb many of the mistakes from which their successors learn. Horton wasn’t afraid of failure, because, to him, it was just another step toward finding something that would work.

“They work,” Horton once said of Norton, Vidal, Cabernet Franc and Viognier. Through his trial and error, he begat some of Virginia’s core wine culture.

He was “this brash, kind of gruff kind of guy who was very forward-thinking and super progressive. I feel very fortunate that I got to work with him at that time,” McCarthy says.

“When you think of Dennis,” Morton says, “you think of the word bold. He had a bold, uninhibited, approach to wine.”

“Restless, opinionated, innovative, relentless—he pursued his vision with unwavering determination,” says Michael Heny, former Horton winemaker who worked with Dennis and Sharon Horton for decades. Dennis “not only worked for the success of Horton Vineyards,” Heny said, “he wanted to build an industry. An open book with his successes and failures, he mentored an entire generation of fledgling viticulturists and encouraged his winemaking team to do the same. His deep influence on the grape varieties grown in Virginia will be felt for generations to come.”

 

 

 

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Living

Oregon wine’s enduring relationship with Virginia

Bill Curtis of Tastings has long been a champion of Oregon wines, in particular the wines made by Michael Etzel of Beaux Frères winery. Photo by Amy Jackson

In most wine shops and restaurants in Virginia, you’ll find an excellent Oregon wine selection—one that locals may take for granted. But Virginia’s high-quality Oregon wine niche is no accident, it’s driven by a core group of passionate people.

Though Oregon’s pre-Prohibition wine history dates back to the 1840s, today’s winemakers put down roots in the 1960s. In 1985, Beth and Rob Crittenden worked a harvest in Oregon and got to know many of the winemakers long before the state’s wine renaissance dazzled the rest of the country—and they loved the Northwest wines their friends grew and produced.

Shortly after the couple moved to Virginia to be closer to family, they founded Roanoke Valley Wine Company in 1994. “When we first moved here,” says Beth, “there were just a handful of Northwest wines” available in Virginia. The Crittendens aimed to fix that. They introduced Virginia to the Oregon wines of Brick House and Eyrie, and carried the wines of Cameron Winery and Patricia Green from their first vintages.

“We were the first distributor in the United States to offer Oregon wines as a central focus,” says Rob. “Many wines were available in Virginia years and years before they were available in larger markets. For that reason, Virginians have had, and still have, access to the best of Oregon.”

That access was eagerly accepted by the local wine community. “When we first introduced Oregon wines in Virginia, only a few potential customers even knew that Oregon made wine,” says Rob. “Luckily for us, they were open-minded. …Early adopters included Bill Curtis at Tastings, Robert Harllee at Market Street [Wineshop] and Elaine Futhey at the C&O.”

Because most Oregon wineries are small, typically family operations, “Oregon producers have always embraced direct relationship-based marketing of their wines,” says Brian O’Donnell, winemaker at Belle Pente Vineyard & Winery.

Dry-farm advocate (no use of irrigation) John Paul, owner of Cameron Winery and planter of the inimitable Clos Electrique vineyard, says, “When we have time, we personally go on the road to sell our own products. I have to believe that the authenticity of that approach is not lost on the consumers here or elsewhere.”

The popularity of Oregon wines in Virginia “is because of people like Beth and Rob and their amazing team,” says Rob Stuart of R. Stuart & Co. “They are all about small, family producers living real lives. There is such a disconnect these days with large corporate conglomerate producers and the consumer. RVWC is giving the Virginia market a reconnect to what we all seem to crave, a personal connection between the producers and the consumers.”

There is a growing eagerness to embrace the high quality wines of Oregon that catches its winemakers off guard. “Mainly you will find me on a tractor, so, imagine my surprise, along with my distributor, when a wine director in D.C. ushered us back during dinner service to taste my wines,” says Jim Prosser of J.K. Carriere Wines based in Newberg. “The deer on my hill don’t show a deference, [but I] guess [the reception of Oregon wines is] different on the East Coast.”

Because light red wines go so well with a diversity of foods, pinot noir has become the go-to grape in many dining situations. “Since Oregon pinot noir is compatible with so many different types of foods, it is a natural choice for this more casual, small-plate-oriented method of dining,” says O’Donnell. “Heavier red wines are far less versatile at the table. That is why you find pinot noir—and especially Willamette Valley pinot noir—gaining in popularity in America’s top restaurants.”

Prosser echoes this notion. “Wines of energy lift themselves out of the glass and represent; they offer moments of epiphany,” he says. “Oregon wines have energy and that will bode well for their intersection with food, wherever, however you find it.”

Chris Dunbar of The Alley Light in downtown Charlottesville nods to the Oregon wines on his wine list. Currently, “we serve the Omero Cellars pinot noir by the glass, and have Beaux Frères, Ken Wright and Domaine Serene by the bottle. Oregon’s cool climate produces a similar taste profile to Burgundy—Robin’s favorite wine region—which always pairs well with food,” says Dunbar, referring to the restaurant’s chef and co-owner Robin McDaniel. “Conversely,” he says, “I love the under-appreciated Alsatian varietals—pinot blanc, pinot gris and riesling” from Oregon.

“Oregon wines are some of our most popular,” says Farrell Vangelopoulos at The Ivy Inn. “With our all-American wine list, Oregon is a natural fit. The pinot noirs are so elegant and expressive.”

At Market Street Wine, co-owner Thadd McQuade says, “Oregon has long been a home to idiosyncratic free-thinkers. Wineries like Biggio Hamina and Illahe have irrefutable personality, aromatic complexity and are standard-bearers of the natural, non-interventionist winemaking that we value and support.”

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Knife & Fork

The new virginia cuisine: Though the local food scene is shifting, quality remains its touchstone

When Bizou’s Brett Venditti first started, finding local produce required reaching out vendors directly. “Now, we have two or three people come by each week with fresh local products,” he says. Photo: John Robinson

As the state’s economy invests heavily in animal farming, agriculture and wine and beer production—and as chefs take advantage of the new bounty around them—is a new Virginia cuisine emerging?

Local chefs say yes.

“When I first started here, you’d have to seek out your local produce and go to the vendor to get it,” says Bizou sous chef Brett Venditti. “Now, we have two or three people come by each week with fresh local products. It spurs so much creativity when you have local people bringing you this huge bounty of food all at once. It gets your brain going, and you start thinking about how you might prepare it, even days before it arrives.”

The state’s geography drives a big part of regional culinary identity. In Charlottesville, Bizou owners Vincent Derquenne and Tim Burgess pioneered a push toward local, high-quality ingredients with Metropolitain restaurant (now Bizou) on the Downtown Mall.

“We started working with local ingredients very early at Metropolitain,” says Derquenne. But in the early 1990s, he says, the produce was different. “People are much more organized now, and now they plant more things restaurants need.” There is a new synergy as local farmers and restaurants get on the same page.

What came first?

“Eggs were the first local product to make an impact,” says Derquenne. “Polyface Farm was the pioneer, and then many people moved toward a similar model.”

But chefs and farmers aren’t the only ones driving the change. “People are a lot more concerned about where their food is coming from,” says Rachel Gendreau, general manager and sommelier at Bizou. “Much of that has to do with Michael Pollan’s influence,” and in particular, the impact of his book The Omnivore’s Dilemma, which denounces industrialized food production and touts locally sourced cuisine.

“People are more savvy than ever before, and they are holding restaurants to a higher ethical standard,” says Gendreau. Locally farmed artisanal products can often cost more than mass-produced imported foods, thus in addition to a new demand for local products, customers are also “more willing to pay a premium for that experience.”

Show your local

The shift Venditti describes—from having to seek out local produce to the grower now bringing them to the restaurant—is mirrored in the wine world, too. Sommelier Elaine Futhey remembers driving to Virginia wineries to bring back bottles for the wine list in the early days at C&O Restaurant. Today, local wines are more easily obtainable through organized distribution.

That’s a good thing, because the savvier diners become as it pertains to the food menu, the more they ask for local wine. At Fleurie, for example, nearly 20 percent of wine bottle sales are local, which is an increase from about 5 percent a decade ago.

And restaurants are proud to feature local food and wine.

“Everybody’s got their chalkboard showing which menu items come from where,” says Venditti. And each chef has their favorite local product to work with.

“Trout from Rag Mountain,” says Derquenne. “We started with them at Metropolitain, and they’ve provided 28 years of a consistent product. And it’s delicious.”

Venditti pays homage to the mushrooms from Bear Dog Farms, and to the okra from Wayside Produce. “At the height of the season, they were bringing us okra, these baby eggplants that grilled up so light, patty pan squash and, of course, heirlooms [tomatoes].”

The Alley Light chef Robin McDaniel points to the unrelenting demand for prime ingredients as what defines Charlottesville’s culinary scene. “Charlottesville cuisine, as a whole, is much like its population: very diverse yet unified by a commitment to quality,” she says.

As this new Virginia cuisine emerges, unique pairings of local food, wine and beer help anchor regional culinary identity that will—hopefully—define this state for decades to come.

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Knife & Fork Magazines

Worth the wait: An orphan amber Pinot gets a second life

Photo: Lora Kelley

It all began with a little generosity from Mother Nature. “We had a Pinot Gris block come in heavier than expected,” says Joy Ting, enologist and project manager at Michael Shaps Wineworks. “Since the excess had not been slated for a specific wine, and it was early in harvest, we realized we had the time and opportunity to do something a little bit different with the extra tonnage.”

Ting and winemaker Jake Busching teamed up on the experiment. “Joy and I balance one another really well as winemakers,” says Busching. “I tend not to measure much and she has the precision of a stooping falcon.”

They crushed and destemmed the grapes. But, instead of pressing juice as you would a normal white wine, Ting says, they let the juice ferment on the skins before pressing it off.

Skin-contact wines, also known as orange wines or amber wines for their deep golden hues, are experiencing a comeback. This style of winemaking has millennia of history in the country of Georgia, where wines ferment with juice, skins and seeds in large underground terracotta vessels. Though this age-old method of winemaking was likely the way the first white wines were made, modern winemaking tends to discard the skins of white grapes directly after pressing. Skins change the flavor and tannin structure of a white wine, and they also adjust potassium, acidity and microbial environments, which can change the direction of a fermentation.

After Ting and Busching pressed off their experimental wine, says Ting, “it was pretty rough—literally.”

“It had tannins, and they were pretty aggressive at first,” she says. “But, it had some really nice potential flavors hiding amidst all the grip.” At that point, they decided, the best course of action was putting it in a barrel and waiting it out.

It sat in a barrel at Michael Shaps Wineworks for about two years until Ting pulled a sample and brought it to a gathering. Ting knew Busching would be there, and she wanted to blind test him on his own experiment.

Most wineries have a random barrel or two of experimental ferments, or fermentations that didn’t go quite as planned. If the wine is sound, these barrels will often be blended into a larger-volume product, because labeling a few odd bottles separately can distort business models and confuse regular customers who have grown to expect a certain type of wine from the winery.

But what if there was an outlet for small-batch, unique wines that don’t quite fit with a winery’s model?

Enter Will Curley and Priscilla Martin Curley. Will runs the beverage programs for Will Richey’s Ten Course Hospitality restaurant group, and Priscilla is the general manager and wine director at Tavola. The husband-wife team tasted the Pinot Gris sample at the party and became enchanted with the idea of saving this orphan barrel from a near-certain fate of obscurity.

A few days later, the Curleys got together with Busching, Ting and Ting’s husband, Paul, to discuss the idea further. The meeting turned into a blending trial. They decided to mix in a small amount of Riesling to boost the acid, and a tiny amount of Viognier to round out the mid-palate and add aromatics. The wine is still predominantly Pinot Gris, with hints of the other elements to bring the wine into a nice balance.

“We decided we were just going to sell it at Tavola, Brasserie Saison and through Jake’s wine label,” says Martin Curley—a focused outlet for its limited 58 cases, to give The Orphanage (so named because Ting continually referred to it as the orphan barrel) a platform its creators feel it deserves.

The orphan barrel of skin-contact Pinot Gris has found a happy home. But the larger idea behind the project hints that there are more interesting one-off barrels in local wineries that could use The Orphanage series platform as a way to enter the market. The amber Pinot Gris is the debut release. What will be next? “Jake and I are talking about a vermouth,” says Curley.

Erin Scala is the sommelier at Fleurie and Petit Pois. She holds the Diploma of Wines & Spirits, is a Certified Sake Specialist and writes about beverages on her blog, thinking-drinking.com.

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Living

Magic is being made with Honah Lee Vineyard’s grapes

Honah Lee Vineyard’s mountaintop location produces “lush and plump” fruit, including viognier and petit manseng, that is increasingly coveted by winemakers. Photo by Haley Jones

When Vera Preddy and her late husband, Wayne, purchased their property on Gibson Mountain in 1985, they never imagined they’d end up in the wine business. Their 150-acre farm was once part of Windholme Farm, and when they moved onto their parcel, they christened it Honah Lee, after the idyllic place described in the 1960s folk song “Puff, the Magic Dragon.” They started raising cattle and built a house, and later, on a neighbor’s suggestion, decided to get into the turkey-raising business.

Poultry has been a staple industry in the area for centuries (Honah Lee sits about four miles north of Gordonsville). In 1794, a Gordonsville tavern became known for serving chicken. In the 1840s, a railroad stop was established in the town, and by the 1860s locals sold chicken through the windows of stopped C&O trains.

The Preddys raised chickens in the past but switched exclusively to turkeys because they stay put. “When we had hens, they were sneaky and they’d get out,” Preddy says.

I wondered aloud to Preddy’s son, Eric Hopwood, if their business model made for a busy fall, going directly from grape harvest season into Thanksgiving turkey season. Hopwood explains that their turkeys are more for lunch meats than the holiday meal. “Our turkeys are about 40 pounds apiece,” he says. “The breast itself is the size of a Thanksgiving roaster oven. We raise turkeys year-round that are antibiotic- and hormone-free, and they go to specialty stores.”

The Preddys were focused on poultry and cattle when they leased a good portion of their land to a nearby winery. Grape vines went in the ground, but after a lease dispute in the 1990s, the Preddys found themselves in the sudden stewardship of vineyards.

“We had to learn real quick about growing grapes and making wine,” says Preddy, so they hired consultant Jeanette Smith. “She was great as far as teaching us how to take care of the vines.”

The Preddys, thrust by circumstance into a burgeoning industry, couldn’t imagine then how much the industry would grow. “There were a few vineyards around then, but now they are like little mushrooms; they’re popping up everywhere,” Preddy says. In 1995, Virginia had 46 wineries. A 2016 press release from Governor Terry McAuliffe’s office announced there are now more than 285 wineries in the state. That’s a 520 percent growth rate over a 21-year period.

As you travel up the mountain, the first vines appear around 650 feet. The vineyard is punctuated by two turkey barns and the colony of gigantic turkeys, then the rows of grapes continue up to the top where you’ll find older-vine viognier at about 1,000 feet.

At first, the Preddys sold their grapes to about 20 different wineries. Then, they narrowed that down to about five or six wineries. Today they work mostly with Michael Shaps Wineworks and Jake Busching Wines.

Life on the mountain began to change focus from grape-growing to wine-making when Hopwood took the reins in the early 2000s. “At the time, I was with the local law enforcement, and I retired from that in 2011,” he says. “That was when we started getting more into the wine business, and we added the event venue.” In 2015, Hopwood first made his wines at Michael Shaps Wineworks and now pours them under the Honah Lee label in his tasting room. Hopwood and his wife, Brandy, also oversee BerryWood Crafters, which incorporates local baked goods and crafts in their wine tasting room.

Hopwood points to the malbec near the top of the mountain as the source of his favorite wine from the property. Aside from the taste, that particular site has a special meaning to his family. “It’s a wonderful place to wake up to every day, the views, the peace and tranquility,” he says. “I often go up there to the top and sit and contemplate life. I take my little 2-year-old daughter up there and she just falls asleep in my arms.”

The perch up top is storied for its views. “At one time, we had a fire tower up here and you could see 360 degrees,” Hopwood says. “It was said that with binoculars you could see the tip of the Washington Monument.”

Mountain fruit is increasingly coveted in Virginia. Though it’s more intensive to farm, vines on sloped mountains have better airflow, which helps prevent frosts, and the soils usually have better drainage. The summit has also captured the heart of Jake Busching, who has been working with Honah Lee fruit since early in his career. Enchanted by the viognier on the mountain, Busching sourced his 2015 and 2016 Viognier from the Preddys.

Joy Ting, enologist and production manager at Michael Shaps Wineworks, also enjoys working with the Honah Lee fruit. “Honah Lee produces fruit that lives up to its whimsical name,” says Ting. “The fruit from there is always lush and plump. Each variety expresses itself fully, from the sauvignon blanc and viognier to the petit verdot and tannat. The petit manseng from Honah Lee has great chemistry, and is versatile enough to make a dry table wine, a sweet dessert wine or anything in between.”

Now, Hopwood is gearing up to begin harvest, which he says could be a record.

“Right now it’s shaping up to be pretty good. But…the summer’s not over yet. We’re watching tropical storms.”

Erin Scala is the sommelier at Fleurie and Petit Pois. She holds the Diploma of Wines & Spirits, is a Certified Sake Specialist and writes about beverages on her blog, thinking-drinking.com.

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Living

The sweet spot: Zeroing in on special vineyard sites

A 30-some-acre spot on the top of Veritas Vineyards’ “saddleback” contains viognier and cabernet franc. It’s the first site, says winemaker Emily Pelton, with “considerable elevation and gorgeous aspect.” Photo courtesy of Stephen Barling.

Several decades into Virginia’s booming post-Prohibition wine economy, we are starting to home in on some special vineyard sites throughout the state. In France, you’ll find heavily protected and coveted grand cru and premier cru sites; in other wine-centric countries you’ll find similar infrastructures protecting the best vineyards. What sites are emerging as Virginia’s equivalent to grand cru vineyards?

A straightforward answer is much more elusive than you might think, because the question is being asked, perhaps, a bit too early. Learning the land takes time because agriculture takes time. The search for quality in the wine business is an especially drawn-out process because, though grapes are an annual product, a grape vine plant has a similar lifespan to a human, and grape vine roots can take decades to reach the depth and maturity they need to truly express their place. Only when the vines are echoing their environment can the influence of special sites shine their truest. This clarity of site quality can take decades and generations to discover. You just can’t rush it.

“I’d say for the most part that we are so young as an industry that most of our best sites are unplanted and yet to be discovered,” says Early Mountain Vineyards’ Ben Jordan. “I’m not the first to say so, but I think the best is yet to come.”

As the industry grows into its next phase, it’s helpful to revisit some vineyards that seem to have that “special something” in the hopes that we can glean a bit of experiential knowledge.

Ankida Ridge

“There are a few characteristics that make Ankida Ridge a great site for growing quality wine grapes,” says winemaker Nathan Vrooman. “The elevation and relative altitude of the vineyard allow for excellent drainage of cold air, which helps to mitigate our risk for spring frost.” Additionally, the slope of the vineyard, combined with the loose rocky soil, allows for water drainage, so the plants are forced to send their roots deeper into the ground. Being on a mountainside, there’s almost constant air movement, so the plants and the fruit tend to dry very quickly, which results in lighter fungal pressures.

Barboursville Vineyards

Barboursville winemaker Luca Paschina is always reevaluating his vineyard blocks for the highest quality material to make his Octagon blend. Among the vineyard’s 900 acres, there is a particular area that the wine team has designated “santa,” as if holy. For the past 18 years, it has been producing, with almost impeccable consistency, its prized merlot, which is the starting block of the winery’s Octagon blend.

“Many elements make the block special,” Paschina says, “starting from the medium vigor red clay soil to the gradually steep slope facing to the east, which allows for a nice early morning dew-drying sun and for a cooling during the late summer afternoons.”

Michael Shaps Wineworks

For Michael Shaps, who produces wine from grapes grown on various properties, three special vineyards stick out in his mind: Carter Mountain for its cabernet franc, the Gordonsville’s Honah Lee Vineyard for its petit manseng and Loudoun County’s Wild Meadow vineyard for its chardonnay.

“What makes Wild Meadow so special is not one particular variable, but how all the elements come together,” Shaps says. “The soil is lighter, loamier with less clay and with good drainage. But that in conjunction with the slope, exposure and its northern Virginia location, which provides cooler nighttime temps during the critical last two weeks of ripening, help to produce very balanced chemistry, which in wine vocab means fresh fruit.”

Veritas Vineyards

Emily Pelton, winemaker at Veritas, loves the new vineyards her family has planted. She works mainly with the vineyards from Veritas’ first plantings in 1999, but says the newer ones—planted in the last four years—are quickly gaining her favor.

“We cleared 30-odd acres on the top of our ‘saddleback’ and we have planted it to viognier and cabernet franc,” she says. “I think it may be the promise of the future that makes my heart skip a beat every time I visit these vineyards, or it may be the view, I’m not sure. This vineyard would be my first site that has considerable elevation and gorgeous aspect. Fingers crossed!”

Jake Busching Wines

Winemaker Jake Busching is currently focusing on 800- to 1,000-foot elevation sites with clay-based soil: Honah Lee, Carter Mountain, Wild Meadow and similar vineyards that are slowly being tuned in vintage after vintage.

“Monticello reds and Northern Virginia whites stand out to me, just as the Shenandoah Valley has so much to offer,” Busching says. “But like all of the sites, we need more time to suss it all out. We are headed into greatness. Patience seems like our best ally.”

Erin Scala is the sommelier at Fleurie and Petit Pois. She holds the Diploma of Wines & Spirits, is a Certified Sake Specialist and writes about beverages on her blog, thinking-drinking.com.m.

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Living

Drink it up: A look at the impressive wines in NoVa

Linden Vineyard’s founder Jim Law has been making Virginia wine since the 1980s and consulting with other growers for just as long. Photo courtesy of subject

Here in Charlottesville, there’s great enthusiasm for our local wines. The Monticello AVA (American Viticultural Area) loyalty is so hyper-local, in fact, it’s easy to forget there are wineries in other parts of the state. This week, I put down my glass of Crosé to explore another Virginia wine region: Northern Virginia, nicknamed NoVa.

If you looked at a map and combined Northern Virginia with the Monticello AVA, you’d be looking at a large chunk of land where the majority of wineries in the state operate. In this belly of the Virginia wine industry, though the region may look unified on a map, the Monticello area is more associated with the James River Basin while NoVa is influenced by the Potomac and the Rappahannock river basins. The main soil types are a little different, too, with red clay dominating much of the Monticello and various residual sedimentary soils making up many NoVa soils. In NoVa, you will also find outcroppings and swaths of greenstone and granite, which are coveted soils for grape growing.

The two regions also receive different weather. Atlantic storms rolling up the East Coast hit Roanoke, glide by Richmond and continue straight through to Charlottesville. Northern Virginia has Maryland and the Chesapeake Bay to the east, which help buffer the region against harsh weather.

You can point to the genesis of NoVa’s wine industry at Linden Vineyards, where Jim Law has made bellwether Virginia wines since 1983. His flagship, the Hardscrabble red blend, and Hardscrabble chardonnay are both meticulously farmed at his home vineyard. Law’s wines are regularly acclaimed by various wine experts as some of Virginia’s great wines.

“I have always wanted to sneak a Linden Hardscrabble chardonnay into a blind tasting of top white Burgundy—I think it would show well and fit in perfectly,” says Kevin Sidders, of VinConnect.

Nearby at Glen Manor Vineyards, winemaker Jeff White is enthusiastic about his new site with steep slopes. The soil on this part of his family’s fifth-generation farm is very rocky, he says, with “mainly granite and greenstone, and it’s extremely well drained.” That soil type mixed with steep slopes translates to excellent tasting in the glass.

I have always wanted to sneak a Linden Hardscrabble chardonnay into a blind tasting of top white Burgundy—I think it would show well and fit in perfectly. Kevin Sidders, VinConnect

White’s elegant sauvignon blanc is a favorite among folks in the local industry. “I love the sauvignon blanc from Glen Manor,” says Blenheim Vineyards winemaker Kirsty Harmon. White also makes a late-harvest petit manseng named Rapheus, which has a nice balance of sugar and acid.

Rutger de Vink’s RdV Vineyards in Delaplane focuses on two labels of red Bordeaux-style wine. Classic and powerful, they are as tasty as they are notoriously expensive, but RdV also makes an affordable Friends and Family red that you can find in select restaurants. The vineyard is on a unique granite hillside that could come to be one of Virginia’s great sites.

Both White and de Vink spent time working with Law, which highlights how Law’s influence and guidance has helped anchor NoVa’s fine wine community. Boxwood Winery, planted at the site of an 18th century horse farm, specializes in Bordeaux-style red blends of which it produces three, as well as a rosé. It recently added a sauvignon blanc to its portfolio. The Boxwood wines have a visceral deliciousness to them, and they are a great value in comparison to their neighbors. The Topiary red is a favorite among locals.

Newer to the NoVa scene is Paradise Springs. Located at the site of a once famous mineral springs, the winery displays antique water bottles with “paradise” etched on them. In particular, the Paradise Springs viognier is worth seeking out.

How is the 2017 harvest shaping up in NoVa? Vineyard consultant Lucie Morton works with wines around the state and says it looks like “everyone dodged most of the bullets, like late spring frost and rain in May and June.” But winemakers are still waiting to see how the grapes will mature through the end of this season.

From a larger perspective, now that NoVa’s wine industry is established and producing some serious wines of high quality, the industry is beginning to mesh with the local food industry. NoVa’s proximity to the Chesapeake Bay makes the area ripe for a unique local cuisine where, perhaps one day, soft-shell crabs with NoVa sauvignon blanc might be as famous a pairing as France’s Loire Valley sauvignon blanc and goat cheese. It’s becoming more than just a NoVa wine trade —it’s a new epicurean culture.

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Living

Grapegrower Chris Hill’s essential contribution to Virginia wine

Vineyard consultant Chris Hill has a long view of local agriculture that he hopes will see the food production sub-economy meet Virginia’s wine success. “I love the marrying of local food and local wine,” he says. “It’s so simple. In the end it’s just all about food, and I consider wine a food.” Photo courtesy of subject.

“We dodged a bullet,” says vineyard consultant Chris Hill, as he tucks his hand through a grapevine thicket, revealing a cluster of grapes. He suspects the previous day’s rain may have damaged the fruit set, but the bunches look much better than anticipated. The canopy, lush with precipitation, shines a vibrant green, and hungry tendrils reach out into the rows, searching for something to grab on to. As we walk down a sloped row, vines spread across rolling hills in all directions.

Standing near the center of a 17-acre vineyard of fruit destined for Pippin Hill wine, Hill says this site is the John Teel vineyard, named for its late owner. Motioning with his arm to the greater area, he says, “This is some of the best farming land anywhere.” As if on cue, a nearby cow responds with a hearty “moo.”

Another vineyard that contributes to Pippin Hill is Grape Lawn in Nelson County, which boasts about 12 acres of sauvignon blanc, viognier, cabernet franc, merlot and tannat. Viewing an older four-acre block of cabernet franc planted in 1999, it was a treat to see the thick trunks and to wonder how old those vines will grow. Hill reminds us there is so much more out there. “What I’m showing you is just the tip of the iceberg,” he says.

Hill has more than a little experience in Virginia. In fall 1981 he prepped land for vineyards on the north side of the James River at Glendower Estate, near Scottsville. The following year he says he “put in chardonnay, cabernet sauvignon, vidal blanc and seyval. A little later we added cabernet franc and chambourcin.” That early vineyard produced a small crop in 1983, then a larger crop in 1984.

In those early days of Virginia wine development, from about 1981 to ’84, Hill and a group that included Philip Ponton (then Oakencroft winemaker), brothers Michael Bowles (Montdomaine) and Steve Bowles (then Fat City Diner), Hans and Anna Riddervold and Paul Mierzejewski (now at DelFosse), met regularly to discuss wine at round-table sessions. “Gabriele sometimes came, too,” he says, referring to winemaker Gabriele Rausse. Many in this core group would go on to set the tone for Virginia’s current wine industry.

By 1997, Hill was working at Jefferson Vineyards on a team with two people who today have their own Virginia wine labels: Michael Shaps and Jake Busching. In 1998 this trifecta produced one of the great wines of Virginia—the 1998 Jefferson Cabernet Franc. “’98 was a great vintage,” Hill says. “Some years, with some varieties, you hit it just right. Everything came together that year.”

Talk of the 1998 Jefferson Cabernet Francs elicits great stories from those who remember drinking them.

He remembers two cuvées, or bottlings, of Jefferson Cabernet Franc in 1998, and “one was a vineyard designate [with fruit] from Glendower,” his inaugural Virginia vineyard project. “Now, I’m biased,” he says, “but that was the best wine ever made in Virginia.” Indeed, talk of the 1998 Jefferson Cabernet Francs elicits great stories from those who remember drinking them. Shaps says it’s one of his favorite wines he has ever made, and Busching points to the wine as the aha moment that set the course of his career.

In the mid-1990s, Hill began to help friends respond to issues and problems in their own vineyards, and his professional life grew slowly and organically into that of a vineyard consultant. Through consulting, he’s had a hand in a long list of wineries including Keswick, Veritas, DelFosse, Pollak, Lovingston, Barren Ridge, Virginia Wineworks and Pippin Hill. After almost three and a half decades of growing grapes in Virginia, Hill feels a sense of deep gratitude. “I’m the luckiest guy in the world,” he says. “I’ve worked with so many great people. Look at us now, this is a great business.”

Hill sees how the booming wine business fits into a larger epicurean picture, as one well-functioning part of Virginia’s larger agricultural scene, and he wants other aspects of Virginia agriculture to experience the same success.

“Drinking wine and eating food, it’s a very communal thing,” he says. “It’s about community. And in making the grapes and wine, it’s a huge effort. The labor that goes into the vineyards, it requires a lot of cooperation.”

And these ideas relate to a bigger concept of finding happiness in the pleasures of the table. “Epicureanism is pretty important as a philosophy,” he says. “And working in Albemarle with Thomas Jefferson’s influence, epicureanism is important for our food and wine businesses.

“It’s so important…this pursuit of happiness. I mean, why would you put that into a founding document? I find that to be remarkable.”

Erin Scala is the sommelier at Fleurie and Petit Pois. She holds the Diploma of Wines & Spirits, is a Certified Sake Specialist and writes about beverages on her blog, thinking-drinking.com.