Tag: Jake Busching Wines

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Taking root: An itinerant winemaker settles in at a new Earlysville vineyard

Central Virginia winemaking veteran Jake Busching takes a break during the harvest at Hark Vineyards. Photo: Amy and Jackson Smith

Jake Busching has a killer grin. It’s cozy and sly, a knowing, amused-by-the-world look that a salty old sea captain might wear. Except in Bushing’s case, it’s the smirk of a sweaty farm-tractor driver. I know this because I’m sitting down with him fresh out of the vineyards, where he’d been hedging—trimming back the wild growth on grapevines that could be his to tame for many years—and, um, sweating.

After 20-plus years of peregrination that included creating his own wine label, consulting, teaching, and working at half a dozen of the better wineries in the area—including Jefferson, Keswick, Pollak, and Michael Shaps—Busching has thrown in his lot with two ambitious Virginia wine newbies. Showing me around the new Hark Vineyards production facility—as big as an airplane hangar—the winemaker’s grin flashes into a wide, proud smile.

“Whaddya think?” he says, throwing his arms wide. “My new home.”

A great wine starts with great fruit. The 2019 harvest in central Virginia has been very good, owing to little rain and lots of heat and sunshine. Photo: Amy and Jackson Smith

Aaron and Candice Hark planted grapes on the property here, in Earlysville, in 2016. After graduating from the South Carolina Honors College at the University of South Carolina in the early aughts, the Harks moved to Charlottesville and co-founded the education-related software firm Maxient. While also active in philanthropy and the arts (Candice is a founding member of C’ville Gives and on the board of the American Shakespeare Center), the Harks are not mere dabblers in wine.

By hiring a top gun like Busching and investing heavily not only in their vineyards but also in a state-of-the-art, solar-powered production shop, the Harks have established themselves as serious entrants into the local industry. They have also done their homework, attending viticulture classes at Piedmont Virginia Community College—where their instructor was none other than Busching. “We hit it off and they asked me to be their consulting winemaker,” he says. “I was in flux with my label and they offered me a home alongside them at their facility.”

Smart move by the Harks, a great new opportunity for Busching—sounds like a win-win. Coming off a very good harvest this year, Busching is poised to move out of the background and stand—publicly—among the better winemakers in central Virginia.

In the run-up to the winery’s opening, planned for October, we spoke with Busching about wine, creativity, family, and settling down—so now you can say you knew him when.

Knife & Fork: The lore is that you were traveling with your band, Entropy, landed in Virginia in 1993 at age 23, and decided to stay because it was warmer than your native Minnesota. True?

Jake Busching: I sang in that band, an alt-punk-fusion kinda thing. We used it primarily as an outlet for a lot of crazy creativity. We were together for four years or so. Very cathartic and exploratory for the entire group.

You’ve said that you remember drinking your first bottle of wine around that time, a jug of Chianti you picked up for $7 from a 7-Eleven, after finishing up a late-night restaurant shift in Richmond.

That was honestly my first step onto the wine path. The Chianti moment thrust me into thinking about the provenance and the process of wine. I could taste something beyond the pleasure of alcohol and began to wonder about the “how” in the experience of wine. It was a single pivotal moment in a very pivotal time.

In 1997, a few years after the Chianti epiphany, you started working at Jefferson Vineyards. How did that come about?

I was working at Sunbow Trading company in downtown Charlottesville, doing rug sales and care, when I met Stanley Woodward, the owner of Jefferson Vineyards. He would come in weekly, after lunch at the C&O, and sit and have tea with me and talk about the tribal rugs and art in general. He was a fantastic artist and free spirit. He asked me to come to work on his estate as the farm manager’s assistant after a few months of “tea talk,” because we had such a great rapport. At that time Michael Shaps [of Michael Shaps Wineworks] and [vineyard consultant] Chris Hill had both recently joined the team there. I fell in with them and began to learn viticulture.

You’ve since bumped around a bit in your wine career—grower,  winemaker, consultant, educator, new-project-guy. Which roles do you relish the most?

I am a creator at heart. The process of launching a creation and seeing it come to life thrills me. That could mean a single bottle of wine from dirt to glass, a meal from shopping cart to table, or a 10,000-case winery from napkin sketch to full production.

The latter is your new adventure, Hark Vineyards. It’s quite a different gig than making wine under your eponymous label, which you’ve done for a long time. What has that taught you?

The lessons and hardships are all related to funding and having enough time to do all of the jobs at once. [Winemaking] is a near-impossible endeavor unless you are financially independent or have minions who work for smiles. Having done this for 20 years, for myself and other folks, has allowed me to find my voice, and unleashing it into bottle has been creative bliss.

You’ve managed to go your own way while still being very connected and respected in the community. What advice do you have for others who’d like to travel a similar path?

Do not burn bridges, and leave your ego at the door. I find that most folks that get into the winemaking thing are often assertive creative types that like to take ownership of what they are doing. You have to learn where to draw that line and remember to honor the goals and voice of the project you are working on. I learned that very clearly while doing custom-crush for 16-plus clients at once. Each place needs a voice and you have to just fall back and be a part of the chorus. Also, get someone to sell the wine for you! Otherwise you’ll have no time for living.

How do you expect your life will change now that you’ve joined Hark Vineyards?

I’m in the process of trying to slow my life down a few notches, from that of consulting road warrior back to winemaker. I’m digging in and really excited about working with the Harks to both launch their 100 percent estate-grown label and still do my vineyard-sourcing winemaking for my own wines.

What should we expect from Hark?

We bottled two vintages of Hark Vineyards–labeled wine this August, including chardonnay, cabernet franc, petit verdot, and merlot. Future wines will include pinot gris, petit manseng, cab sauv rose, red and white blends, and vidal blanc. I have been winemaker for all of these wines and am really excited about the level of excellence we have achieved so far.

Hark’s production facility can manage a comfortable 6,000 cases but will be able to produce 10,000 once the public facility comes on line. The vineyard property is maxed out at 18 acres and should give us 4,500 cases of estate-grown fruit within three more years.

When can people begin visiting Hark and tasting the wines?

We are planning to have pop-up sales days through the fall at our production facility. There are also some limited-ticket farm dinner plans in the works. But we are targeting spring of 2021 for a tasting room opening. The Harks are big fans of the outdoors and inspirational landscapes. The building promises to be a unique design for our area, and will emphasize the property’s beautiful views.

You strike me as a Renaissance guy—you majored in music, had a band, cook, write. Do you have other cultural pursuits?

I am a curious human. I get a little obsessed with a process and find myself driven to be adept or beyond, then I tend to move on to another thing. Wine has such a broad span of skills and interests that it’s been the one pursuit that keeps my interest piqued. My favorite thing to “cook” is a bottle of wine. Open it, see what it has to say, plan a meal around it, and execute. Could be scallops or fish or a piece of meat over a fire in the yard.

You’ve been involved with Virginia wine for more than 20 years. What do you think you personally have contributed?

I hope that I’ve been a part of raising the bar for Virginia wine from the cottage industry it was in the early days to the highly respectable industry it is now, whether through grape growing, winemaking, or just continuing to be stubborn about pushing the bounds of industry standards.

Hark Vineyards, 1465 Davis Shop Rd., Earlysville. Jake Busching Wines are available at the winery and through jakebuschingwines.com and at local restaurants and retail stores.

Categories
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.

Categories
Living

Jake Busching’s new label raises the stakes for Virginia wine

Bottling under his new label, Jake Busching Wines, gives the local winemaker an opportunity to use his vast experience in Virginia’s vineyards. Photo courtesy subject

It was while working at Jefferson Vineyards that Jake Busching had his aha wine moment. His epiphany, the Jefferson Vineyards 1998 cabernet franc made by Michael Shaps, remains a true bellwether for Virginia wine—“That’s the one that hooked me,” Busching says. Once he made the connection in his mind between place and flavor, a soil-based winemaking philosophy blossomed, and now the well-known local vintner has a new label: Jake Busching Wines, for which he makes wine from some of his favorite vineyard sites around the state.

Having grown up on his family’s Minnesota subsistence farm, Busching is naturally drawn to working with plants. His father worked at a local paper mill and, at home, they raised beef cows. “When you farm in Minnesota,” Busching says, “you have four months of the year to get everything together to survive for the next eight months. That’s where I learned the importance of the dirt.”

He hunted and fished for many of his meals on the farm, and though life wasn’t always easy, the food was good. Busching sums it up: “I ate like a king, but I wore my cousin’s clothes.”

Eventually, he left Minnesota to work in music, and toured with a band. Asked about the circumstances of his move to Virginia, Busching describes 1993: “We [the band] were sick of being cold and poor, so we moved where we could be warm and poor. We ended up in Virginia.”

By 1996, he returned to farm life and landed at Jefferson Vineyards, a winery near Monticello that grows vines planted on the original site where Thomas Jefferson and Philip Mazzei attempted to grow wine grapes in the late 1700s. “What a great way to come into the business,” says Busching. “This is where it all started. Here.”

Wine bottles. Photography in high resolution.Similar photographs from my portfolio:
Jake Busching has also rethought the conduit of wine from winery to consumer. Rather than open a tasting room or sell to restaurants and retail outlets through a distributor, he sells his wine through his website.

As Jefferson Vineyards’ farm manager, he worked with two important founders of the current Virginia wine scene, vineyard manager and consultant Chris Hill, and winemaker Michael Shaps. Hill has had a hand in planting many of Virginia’s vines, and Shaps now has his own Virginia winery, and produces wines in both Virginia and Burgundy, France.

During a brief stint at Horton Vineyards in 2001, Busching worked with a special site he still admires today: Gordonsville’s Honah Lee Vineyard. Planted in the mid-1990s, the site sits on a mountain that rises up in the middle of flat land. “Up top there’s nothing between you and Richmond,” Busching says. Sloped sites, such as Honah Lee, are good for grapes because the angles generate air movement, which helps prevent frost. The vineyards start around 650′ and at about 1,000′ the top of the mountain wears a crown of old-vine viognier.

Busching subsequently worked at Keswick Vineyards, Pollak Vineyards, Grace Estate Winery and Michael Shaps Wineworks, learning along the way about a wide variety of farming methods and grape varieties from around the state.

In 2015, he made a wine from the special Honah Lee viognier grapes he remembered from his early career, and the recently released bottles are his inaugural offering under the Jake Busching Wines label. He’s also released a 2015 cabernet franc made with grapes from Nelson County.

And keep your eyes peeled in May for Busching’s release of F8, a blend of tannat and petit verdot from the upper section of the Honah Lee vineyard. F8, affectionately referred to by its phonetic nickname Fate, is a special bottling because Busching believes there is a larger place for petit verdot-tannat blends in Virginia winemaking. Throughout his career, Busching has championed tannat, and this has impacted the larger wine landscape. Tannat, typically from France’s Madiran region, is a powerful, full-bodied and usually tannic wine that, to Busching, benefits from blending in some deep-fruited petit verdot. He usually finds a sweet spot at around 60 percent tannat with 40 percent petit verdot. Could his signature blend be a way forward for Virginia reds? If it grows in popularity, we might look back and point to F8 as the catalyst.

Busching has also rethought the conduit of wine from winery to consumer. Rather than open a tasting room or sell to restaurants and retail outlets through a distributor, he sells his wine through his website (JakeBuschingWines.com). This is an effective way to directly interface with consumers on their own time, and it’s becoming increasingly popular with winemakers like Busching, who make incredibly small quantities of special wine. (There are just three barrels of F8.)

As a large second wave of Virginia wine producers establish themselves, Busching’s wines stand out because the mentorship of the late 20th-century wine pioneers shines through. Busching’s new label turns the page to a fresh chapter in Virginia winemaking—one that is built on the sturdy ground of past experience, and maybe a little fate.