The high altitude plantings at 12 Ridges Vineyard put the new winery in an excellent position for crafting what could be Virginia’s best sparkling wine. Courtesy 12 Ridges Vineyard
At the end of May, as Virginia businesses moved into Phase One of reopening, 12 Ridges Vineyard started welcoming visitors back to its tasting room, which overlooks, wait for it…12 acres of vineyards. Like many wineries, 12 Ridges, formerly Skylark Farm and, until now, best known as a Christmas tree farm, features incredible views, outdoor seating, and availability for weddings and events. What gives this new winery distinction is that the vines are planted at approximately 3,300 feet, making it the highest altitude vineyard site in the state of Virginia.
At higher altitudes, cooler temperatures allow grapes to express themselves differently, with generally less sugar and more acid, producing wines lower in alcohol and brighter and livelier in taste. And there are other benefits to high altitude winemaking (like more direct and concentrated sunlight, larger differences between daytime and nighttime temperatures, and slopes allowing cool air and water to drain), but there are also challenges. Some sites are on the edge of being too cold for vines to grow. And steep slopes can make farming difficult, requiring manual labor and increasing costs.
Still, it may be worth the risk. Joy Ting (this writer’s wife), research enologist and coordinator of the Winemakers Research Exchange, explains, “Virginia is a big state and we are still a wine region that is exploring as we evolve and mature. Are we planting in the right places? Are we ignoring areas that don’t fit preconceived notions and missing out on quality wine?”
Jake Busching, who has grown grapes in Virginia for over 20 years, was responsible for planting 12 Ridges. He’s also the consultant at Stone Mountain Vineyards, where he was hired to replant its vineyards in 2017. Stone Mountain sits at an elevation of 1,750 feet and was initially planted in the mid-1990s with French varieties, the fashion at the time. Some of these did well, but others struggled in the cooler climate. So Busching worked with Stone Mountain owners Jim and Deanna Gephart to put in pinot noir and pinot gris, varieties known to thrive in cooler conditions.
Busching says, “I’ve been steadfast about not putting red grapes (cabernet sauvignon, cabernet franc, merlot) above that. But at that elevation, as Ankida Ridge has proven, you can do pinot noir…and chardonnay is beautiful.”
Also at 1,750 feet, Ankida Ridge has earned a reputation for perhaps the best pinot noir in Virginia. Owners Christine and Dennis Vrooman, who first planted in 2008, recognized their site would be well-suited to pinot noir and chardonnay. 12 Ridges owner Craig Colberg draws inspiration from them, “I’ve tasted pinot noir from Ankida. It’s excellent. I aspire to pinot like theirs.”
For 12 Ridges, Busching worked with Colberg to develop a vision of what would be possible at his extremely high site. Busching focused on cold-hardy varieties like chardonnay, pinot gris, riesling, and pinot noir, and he says he planted intentionally for sparkling wine. Most agree sparkling wine has great potential for Virginia, and Busching sees it as a unique opportunity for 12 Ridges. “Sparkling wine could be a game changer because it’s a largely untapped market with high consumer demand,” he says. “12 Ridges has the potential to be the best sparkling wine in Virginia.”
Among those on Colberg’s team are winemaker Ben Jordan, whose labels include Early Mountain Vineyards, Lightwell Survey, and his family’s Midland Construction. In addition, Tim Jordan, who grows grapes on the Jordan family farm, will be the vineyard manager going forward. Jordan says he embraces the challenge of learning about growing at 12 Ridges. “What remains to be seen is whether they are too high and too exposed to winter cold…What ripens and when it ripens will be fun to find out.”
Busching similarly notes the unique challenge of the site, requiring cold-weather vineyard management in winter but hot-weather management in summer. For example, soil is mounded up around the vines in winter to protect them, a process that is reversed in summer, when rainfall and humidity require disease prevention and, despite the shorter growing season, there is still vigorous growth from the fertile soil that requires careful pruning.
Colberg seems well-informed about both the risks and rewards. “It’s my goal to become the premier cool climate vineyard in the state,” he says. I think there is a demand for something that is still high-quality, but a different experience on the palate.”
Meanwhile, Christine Vrooman at Ankida Ridge is advocating for a new American Viticultural Area to recognize higher altitude vineyards in Virginia. If she succeeds, this would be the first new AVA approved in Virginia since 2012. Vrooman is modeling her plan after the Mendocino Ridge AVA in California, which has boundaries defined by elevation. It includes only vineyards higher than 1,200 feet and therefore currently holds the distinction as the only non-contiguous AVA. The AVA Vrooman is proposing would be the second.
As the Virginia wine industry matures, there are risks and unknowns, but there is also vision for the future and a desire for the new and unique. Here’s hoping that the combination of high altitudes, better winegrowing techniques, and a willingness to take risks results in another exciting chapter for Virginia wine.
Veritas Vineyard and Winery is just one of the many local winemaking operations that had to pivot quickly to sell wines online and curbside due to the coronavirus’ effect. Courtesy subject
For many, COVID-19 has made it feel as if time is standing still. For local wineries, however, the early- April budbreak marks the start of the growing season and serves as a hopeful, but also stark, reminder that the cycle of winemaking continues forward. Planning, attention, and hard work is required now if wine is to be made in 2020.
In large part, Virginia’s wineries are small, family businesses and face significant financial challenges during this unprecedented time. Not only must they pay immediate expenses associated with taking care of vineyards, but revenue generated now is required to pay for the harvest and winemaking in the fall.
The wine industry is inextricably intertwined with the restaurant, event, and tourism industries, and springtime in Virginia is usually a peak time for these businesses. With tourism down an estimated 78 percent versus last year, tasting rooms closed, and weddings canceled or postponed, wineries have been forced to move away from their reliable business models.
George Hodson, general manager of Veritas Vineyard and Winery and president/co-owner of Flying Fox Vineyard & Winery describes the Virginia wine industry as “foundationally built on the wine-tourism model. We have set ourselves up to sell wine at full retail out of our tasting rooms.” He believes the industry must adapt, but that it’s nimble enough to do so. Like many wineries, Veritas and Flying Fox have pivoted from on-premises sales and consumption to online sales and delivering the product to consumers in their homes. “We have been forced to completely restructure our sales model.”
Rather than seeing this as a temporary or undesirable response, Hodson believes changes wineries are making now will position them well for the future. “I actually believe that this will be a catalyst event that will change the way people purchase wine. People have been trending toward increased online purchasing, this is going to accelerate that curve exponentially.”
Elizabeth Smith, who owns Afton Mountain Vineyards with her husband, Tony, has also turned to online sales. Their winery had an e-commerce website in the works for several months, but COVID-19 served as an impetus to move forward quickly. In addition, they added wines from Monticello Wine Company, a second label intended only for distribution, to the website. Smith describes online sales as a lifesaver for their business. Like many wineries, they are offering free shipping and curbside pickup.
Afton Mountain usually has about 95 percent of sales go through its tasting room, but going forward Smith says “we will continue with online sales and increase the number of states with which we register to ship wine.” The rapid launch of their e-commerce platform has necessitated a lot of troubleshooting and revamping of operations, but has also allowed them to learn the new system quickly.
In the vineyards, physical distancing is relatively easy because there is a lot of open space, but there are other factors that impact employees. Smith says that normally they would hire extra crews to help with the workload, but this year they are only using core workers for both financial and safety reasons. In addition, they’ve asked their employees to stop working other jobs and limit their social interactions when at home.
In the winery, distancing has delayed bottling in some places, as bottling lines often require workers to stand side-by-side for long periods. While most wineries have not yet addressed what things will look like during harvest, they stress that winery work can continue with proper protocols in place.
Some, like Benoit Pineau, winemaker at Pollak Vineyards, do not anticipate many changes. He says they have a very small team that, through staff education and common sense, can continue to work without risk. However, similar to Afton Mountain, they are asking employees to be responsible with personal time. Pineau refers to the ideal scenario as “home-work-home” with limited or no social activity.
Amidst all of this, it’s obvious there is still great optimism for the 2020 vintage and for the future of Virginia wine. Hodson sees the response from the state government as an important measuring stick. He explains that the governor, secretary of agriculture, and Virginia ABC have worked hard to aid the industry. “Postponing tax payments, easing restrictions, allowing modified operations…we simply cannot ask for more support than we have received,” says Hodson. “This is a signal of the importance of our industry on a state level, which is also a signal of the maturation of our industry.” It’s estimated that the Virginia wine industry has an annual economic impact of over a billion dollars, and the state clearly recognizes that.
Perhaps an even greater cause for hope is consumer support. With online sales and curbside pickups, many wineries across the state are reporting that sales are exceeding their expectations. Hodson describes the response as “overwhelmingly positive,” and is excited about what it indicates. The fact that customers are responding with dollars “tells me our community is supportive of our industry. Ultimately, we are seen as integral members of our community and people want to make sure we are around when this all ends.”
Drink local
A guide to getting central Virginia wine to your table
Luca Paschina, winemaker at Barboursville Vineyards, has high hopes for the 2019 vintage. "We will be celebrating this growing season for many years to come," he says. Photo: Amy and Jackson Smith
Like all agricultural endeavors, growing grapes is subject to the vicissitudes of weather. In Virginia, after a difficult 2018 harvest (because of rain, rain, and more rain), 2019 was good—some would say great—thanks to timely precipitation and stretches of warm, sunny weather.
“This vintage is a beautiful gift to the faithful farmer,” says Luca Paschina, the winemaker at Barboursville Vineyards. “We will be celebrating this growing season for many years to come, for giving us white wines of great intensity and fragrance and reds of unquestionably long age-worthiness.”
Part of this optimism flows from a sense of relief after 2018. Overcast and wet conditions can present serious challenges in both the vineyard and the winery. Lack of sunlight hinders the fruit’s growth and ripening, decreasing sugar content (it is this sugar that is fermented into alcohol), and producing grapes that lack flavor and can taste “green,” or undesirably vegetal. High moisture can also allow mold, mildew, and disease to take hold, leading to damaged fruit and diminished yields. In one of the sadder images of 2018, some winemakers simply left grapes to rot on the vine, because they had burst from too much water and, regardless, the ground was too soft to move harvesting machinery into place.
The next growing season could not have arrived fast enough. Chris Hill, who has been cultivating grapes in Virginia since 1981, says that better vintages share “the common thread of dry weather from mid-August through mid-October.” In his opinion, 2019 should be compared to great vintages such as 1998, 2002, 2007, 2010, and 2017. But Kirsty Harmon believes 2019 is the best vintage since 2008, when she started as winemaker at Blenheim Vineyards.
Joy Ting, research enologist for the Winemakers Research Exchange (and this writer’s wife), explains that, in addition to a dry season, an abundance of sunlight helped to ripen fruit much earlier than in previous years. “The white grapes came in quickly since daytime temperatures were high and sugar accumulated rapidly,” she says. “A little bit of rain and slightly lower temperatures allowed the red grapes to stay on the vine. This led to very good flavor and tannin development.”
Ting also puts forth a theory, shared by a number of winemakers, that the exceptionally wet conditions of 2018 led to higher groundwater levels in 2019, compensating for rainfall one to three inches below average last July through September. Winemakers Emily Pelton at Veritas Vineyard and Winery, and Michael Heny at Michael Shaps Wineworks, agree with Ting. “I was thankful for all of the rain that we had in 2018,” Heny says. “We had so much groundwater that the vines [in 2019] had everything they needed.”
But what about the 2019 wines? High quality, fully ripe fruit picked when the winemaker thought it had achieved optimal conditions (rather than because the next storm was coming), should lead to high quality, aromatic whites and full-bodied, age-worthy reds. It’s impossible at the moment to recommend specific bottles from the vintage—because, well, the wines are unfinished and unbottled—so I asked winemakers which 2019 wines held the greatest promise. “I feel that, in general, red wines more acutely express the quality of a vintage,” says Nathan Vrooman, winemaker at Ankida Ridge Vineyards. “The white wines coming from the region will be very good, but the red wines will really shine.”
Among those, cabernet franc appears to be rising to the top. Finot says the King Family cabernet franc “performed very well this year.” At Veritas, Pelton calls the 2019 crop “bright and vibrant and full of depth.” Paschina singles out Barboursville’s harvest from Goodlow Mountain, about a mile south of the winery, as perhaps its “most elegant wine of the vintage.” Similarly, Rachel Stinson Vrooman, the winemaker at Stinson Vineyards, points to her cabernet franc as “ripe and concentrated, but also maintaining some of the pretty florals and herbal aromas that I look for.” At Keswick Vineyards, winemaker Stephen Barnard believes the estate’s Block 2 cabernet franc to be “the best expression of terroir yet—savory, extracted, spicy.”
Other varieties to look for in 2019 include pinot noir from Ankida Ridge—one of the few area wineries growing the grape—and chardonnay from Loudoun County’s Wild Meadow vineyard. At Michael Shaps, Heny will use the chardonnay in a vineyard-specific wine; he anticipates the 2019 bottling to rival that of 2015, one of my own personal favorites. Also worth noting, according to Harmon, are albariño, a grape grown mostly in Spain and Portugal that’s still relatively rare in Virginia, and cabernet sauvignon, which the lingering dry heat of 2019 helped to achieve full ripeness and flavor.
With uniformly high hopes for the 2019 vintage, Pelton provides some perspective. “I think it is important for us not to lose sight of how fantastically wine tells the story of the year,” she says. “Great years tend to get all of the attention, but the fact that we get to capture all of the aspects of the fabric of a year—whether it was cool or windy or dry or wet—all speaks to the final product, and I find it thrilling to be a part of that story.”
Early Mountain Vineyards has steadily elevated the quality of its wines, in part, with the acquisition of high-quality existing vineyard plots. With the recent arrival of chef Tim Moore, the intention is to offer outstanding food as well. Photo: Tom McGovern
Just off of Route 29, about 25 miles north of Charlottesville, a two-lane road gently rises and falls with the rolling terrain, leading west toward Shenandoah National Park. As you approach the distant mountains they appear to grow bigger. It’s an ethereal scene, relaxing and more than a little distracting, so you might have to hit the brakes pretty hard to avoid racing past the unassuming entrance to Early Mountain Vineyards.
That’s exactly what happened to me on a recent Thursday, as my girlfriend and I headed to the winery for lunch. The scene inside the barn-like main hall is also quite grand, with soaring ceilings trussed by massive wood beams and large windows that always keep the farmland, neat vineyard rows, and muscular mountains within view.
Chef Tim Moore brings more than seven years of kitchen experience at the three-Michelin starred Inn at Little Washington to his new position at Early Mountain Vineyards, in Madison. Photo: Tom McGovern
Our expectations were running high for the meal. I had enjoyed a quick preview of chef Tim Moore’s cooking a couple of weeks earlier, and now I was returning for a fuller experience of the menu, which is offered from 11am-6pm daily except Tuesday, when the winery is closed. Moore’s arrival at Early Mountain this summer was much anticipated. He was taking over the dining program that had been established a few years earlier by Ryan Collins, a protégé of renowned chef José Andrés and now head of the kitchen at Charlottesville’s Little Star. Collins set a high bar, but Moore, like his predecessor, entered with an impressive professional pedigree, having spent more than seven years at the Michelin three-star Inn at Little Washington, in Rappahannock County.
We were seated at a banquette table beneath a window, fortunate to be on the shady side of the dining room, because the sun was blazing that day. The vines were bare, with the harvest recently completed, and the grass was brown due to the drought and persistent summer heat.
The furnishings and table settings are rustic, and the new cuisine‚ like this beet salad with Asian pears and foraged black walnuts, is refined. Photo: Tom McGovern
This is a story about a chef and a restaurant at an excellent winery, so I will dispense with the scene-setting (I know, it’s about time, right?) and describe the food and wine. We started with two, four-glass flights—one with a white, a rosé, and two reds, all from Early Mountain, and another with four reds (“Tantalizing Tannins,” per the list), two of which were from the vineyard and the others from Jefferson Vineyards, in Albemarle County, and Walsh Family Wine, in Purcellville. Early Mountain is the first vineyard in the area to offer a wine program with labels other than its own. The goal is to showcase the best the region has to offer, and thus raise its profile to the national level.
This may sound a tad too ambitious, but the winemaker, managers, and owner of Early Mountain (Jean Case, wife of AOL founder Steve Case) not only believe it can happen but are also taking strides in that direction. They’ve been quietly making trips to high-end restaurants in Washington, D.C., and Manhattan, and some have begun listing Virginia wines—and Early Mountain’s, in particular. Case, who spent more than 20 years leading marketing and branding efforts for AOL, is keenly aware of the importance of public perception. In the world of fine wine and hospitality—just as in any business, I suppose—that means hiring top talent. Moore is an ace pick, for sure, and so is winemaker Ben Jordan, who cut his teeth in the Sonoma Valley and later worked as general manager and winemaker for Michael Shaps. Born in Switzerland, CEO Peter Hoehn has 30 years experience at hotels around the world, including stints at Quail Lodge & Golf Club, in Carmel, California, and the Boar’s Head Resort (it was just an “inn” back then, but a very good one, for sure!).
So, about the food. In a word, sublime. The menu had just 12 items, with 10 priced from $6 to $16, plus a foie gras dish and charcuterie and cheese board that cost $26 and $24, respectively. We steered clear of those and eased into the meal with simply prepared crostini with sweet shallot confit balancing the saltiness of quickly sautéed prosciutto and comté cheese. A heartier dish—housemade focaccia with tomato jam (I call it coulis, but whatever) and a generous portion of burrata—stood up well to the rich reds I was drinking. (The 2017 Early Mountain Vineyards Shenandoah Springs cabernet franc was particularly lush, with deep notes of plum and dark berries.)
We moved on to a light transitional dish of local roasted beets, fromage blanc, black walnuts, and triangles of crisp Asian pear. This assemblage was also a study in balance and contrast: earthy beets, milky cheese, semi-sweet pears, and complex foraged black walnut sauce. I also detected a background citrus flavor, which added another note to the layered composition.
I was beginning to wonder if and when chef Moore would falter, but the goodness just kept coming. One dish—chilled shrimp with chimichurri flavored with coriander, dill, and parsley, and dressed with a vinaigrette that had tiny cubes of fresh lime—was bright and mouth-filling. My scribble next to the item on the menu reads simply, “outstanding.”
On the menu: Icelandic Arctic char with chanterelle mushrooms and mustard cream. The fish is dusted with crispy “pebbles” made by boiling, crumbling, and pan-frying potatoes. Photo: Tom McGovern
Moore is committed to buying local whenever possible, and he chose pork belly from Whiffletree Farm, in Warrenton, for the heartiest plate we tried—three slow-cooked slices finished in a frying pan and served with poached Virginia apples, braised red cabbage, peanuts, and a dark brown reduction of sorghum molasses, apple cider, and veal jus. I was surprised by the peanuts—I mean, by how well they went with the pork. Our fish dish was decidedly not local, made with Icelandic arctic char, chanterelles, puréed potato (with veal stock added, for richness), and grainy mustard cream.
I thought Moore had outdone himself, but then came a local pear poached in wine with fall spices (cinnamon, nutmeg, perhaps some allspice), spicy/sweet whipped cream, and a lacy brown crisp made of sorghum.
Moore’s menu is small but complete, and it changes at least weekly, based on seasonal ingredients and the chef’s imagination. By offering fine dining, Early Mountain is signaling its intention to create an elevated food and wine experience. The winery is also rather remote, so visitors tend to spend more time there than they would if they were touring several vineyards, a common practice in areas west or south of Charlottesville. A leisurely afternoon meal makes good sense for guests who carve out hours—or even a full day if they have kids, who can play outdoors on the expansive grounds—to soak up the atmosphere at the property. It’s also worth noting that Early Mountain is one of a growing number of central Virginia wineries placing more emphasis on dining. After all, if it’s within your means, grazing and sipping wine is not a bad way to spend an afternoon.
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.
Sarah and Todd Zimmerman bought the historic Seven Oaks Farm in 2014, and opened their winery last year. Photos by Kristen Finn and Meredith Coe
By Robert Harlee
How does one create a successful winery? Make delicious wines, promise an engaging customer experience, and site the winery in a beautiful place. The new Septenary Winery at Seven Oaks Farm has done just that.
Todd and Sarah Zimmerman, who met in graduate school at the University of Virginia, bought the Greenwood estate in 2014 and opened the winery last year. The property is on the National Register of Historic Places and contains 14 buildings, including a manor house built in 1847. It has had several noteworthy owners and neighbors, from Lady Astor, a next-door neighbor who later became the first female member of the British Parliament, to local music mogul Coran Capshaw, the most recent owner. Beyond grapes, Seven Oaks has been a working farm for its entire history—free-range ducks and grass-fed beef are still raised here using traditional, sustainable methods.
The site’s vineyards, planted during Capshaw’s ownership, are about 15 years old. That gives winemaker Sebastien Marquet an advantage in making quality wine, as newly planted vineyards must wait until at least their third harvest to begin producing wines, and even then the wines can be simple and bland.
Marquet has been making wine at the Zimmermans’ other vineyard, in Essex County, for nine years. A native of Burgundy, he has 30 vintages under his belt—valuable experience for any winery, new or established. Assistant winemaker James Phillips worked five vintages in New York’s Finger Lakes region.
In honor of the property’s history, Septenary’s wines are named for its buildings, with labels such as the Summer Kitchen Rosé and the merlot-cabernet franc blend called Carriage House. The name Septenary (and the numeral 7 on its labels) recalls the seven ancient oaks that famously grew on the manor house’s lawn, each named for a Virginian president. After six were felled by Hurricane Hazel in 1954, the sole surviving oak is Thomas Jefferson.
A steady breeze flows over the sloping vineyard around the tasting room, not only making the area cooler, but drying out the vines and preventing the various detrimental molds and rots that can ruin the grapes.
Septenary offers several wines from both its estate vineyard and the Essex vineyard. Their reds are based on the Bordeaux grapes of merlot, cabernet sauvignon, cabernet franc, and petit verdot. The whites include two viogniers and a rosé of syrah.
The 2017 estate viognier is a classic unoaked Virginia viognier with a vibrant acidity and aromas of peach and honeysuckle. In contrast, the 2016 California viognier spent 12 months in neutral oak, which shows in its light oak notes with more intense apricot and peach flavors.
The 2017 Summer Kitchen Rosé is made from 100 percent syrah in the Provençal style, light in color, with strawberry and watermelon notes. The finish is crisp and refreshing.
The 2015 Carriage House Red from estate fruit is a blend of 89 percent merlot and 11 percent cabernet franc, a classic Right Bank blend in the style of a Saint-Emilion. Creamy and velvety in the mouth, it shows pleasing spice notes from oak in the soft finish.
Two vintages of the Coleman red blend are currently available. The 2014 is a cabernet-dominated wine (40 percent), with equal parts of merlot, cabernet franc, and petit verdot. Its nose shows this with dark fruits, dark chocolate, and notes of cigar box and hints of vanilla. It is sourced from all-Essex fruit. Alternatively, the estate- and Essex-blended 2015 Coleman displays more red fruits and strawberry, with herbal notes due to its 33 percent merlot and 27 percent cabernet franc with equal parts of cabernet sauvignon and petit verdot.
Both wines are similar in style, but they clearly show the intriguing variations of different vintages and different vineyard sites.
Enjoy these wines in the Zimmermans’ comfortable, nicely decorated tasting room (formerly Capshaw’s pool house), or take a bottle outside, where there are multiple spots to congregate and relax with friends. An upstairs wine club is well-appointed with leather couches, a trés-cool wine decanter collection, and a euro-style self-service wine dispenser. Nothing seems to be an afterthought, and no matter where you sip, you won’t be distracted by kids—in contrast to many area wineries, Septenary is adults-only.
Septenary Winery is located at 200 Seven Oaks Farm in Greenwood. (540) 471-4282
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.
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.
Robert Harllee of Market Street Wineshops has watched an increase in Virginia wine sales at his various locations. Photo by Martyn Kyle
After 31 years of selling wine, fresh bread, cheese and more at Market Street Wineshop from the basement level of 311 E. Market St., Robert Harllee has decided to retire.
But fear not; Charlottesville is not about to lose another jewel from its quirky downtown crown: Two of Harllee’s longtime employees, Siân Richards and Thadd McQuade, are taking over. And they don’t plan on changing much: Market Street Wineshop will become Market Street Wine.
In a letter to the editor printed in the July 14, 2005, issue of The Hook, Harllee detailed the history of his shop: Philip Stafford opened The Market Street Vine Shop (at the time, “wine” couldn’t legally be part of a store’s name) in December 1979 and created “the character and flavor” of the wine shop that Stafford’s successor, David Fowler, maintained and passed along to Harllee and his former business partner, Bill Bird. Harllee and Bird purchased the shop from the late Fowler’s estate and opened up in December 1986, with a cash advance from Visa to stock the drawer.
Harllee says that, at first, he waited tables five nights a week to help cover shop costs.
Back in December 1986, there were a few other wine shops in town at the time (among them The Cellarmaster on Elliewood Avenue, In Vino Veritas, Fleurie at Barracks Road, Foods of All Nations), but finding a good bottle of wine is a bit easier now: Nowadays, even grocery stores have decent wine selections. Plus, Harllee says, Virginia wine has undergone “a new renaissance,” which has made not just oenophiles but the average person more interested in the libation. It’s been an exciting thing to witness as a wine shop owner, says Harllee, who closed Market Street Wineshop’s second location on 29 North late last year.
Over the years, Harllee says he’s loved participating in both the big and small of his customers’ lives, helping them choose wines for dinners at home, for birthday parties and engagement celebrations. These are his most cherished memories.
Richards and McQuade are perhaps best known around town as theater artists, but they’ve each worked for Market Street Wineshop in some capacity since 2006 and 1990, respectively. Harllee says they are “infused with the spirit of the shop.” He trusts they’ll carry on what’s special about the shop—the feel of the space, individualized attention for each customer—while also sustaining it for the future.
Market Street Wine will continue to offer fresh bread from Albemarle Baking Company and The Bread Basket, plus cheeses and other delicious things to eat. The Friday night wine tastings will also continue, and Richards and McQuade plan to offer even more specialized and themed tastings, plus classes and other public events.
And in a time when Charlottesville is changing rapidly, when it feels like small businesses with character are being edged out for a new office building, hotel or luxury condos, keeping a small business’ beloved personality is especially important to Richards and McQuade.
The shop has a very “insistent and particular personality,” Richards says, and she and McQuade don’t want to do anything to erase or alter that. She says they want it to remain “a hidden treasure trove that people are excited to uncover” and visit time and time again.“The goal is to make it feel new and refreshed, re-energized, but also be mindful of the years of tradition that are already in place,” Richards says.
Market Street Wineshop will close Saturday, February 24, and Richards and McQuade will replace the floors and rearrange shelving before opening the shop as Market Street Wine sometime in April.
Grapes ferment in large tanks throughout the production facility before being loaded into a press. Photo by Paul Whicheloe
He pulls the golf cart onto the right side of the gravel path: “Let me show you some of this viognier.” Carrington King, vineyard manager at King Family Vineyards in Crozet, stops the driver of a Kawasaki golf cart heading in the opposite direction of the tasting room, toward the processing facility, loaded down with bright yellow crates called lugs, each filled with 25 pounds of grapes. The crates are marked with the name Roseland in black, the name of the farm and the name of a chardonnay/viognier/petit manseng blend the winery produces. King plucks a cluster of grapes and holds it up to the afternoon sunlight to show how these berries, part of a second harvest of viognier this season, are starting to raisin and dehydrate.
“See how it’s drying nicely, no rot? And that”—he points to a brown discoloration—“that’s a little sunburn, but it’s perfectly fine.”
He pops a few grapes in his mouth.
“Super, super sweet. A year like this you can do interesting projects like this.”
Steeped in history
Our region is part of the Monticello American Viticultural Area, the state’s oldest AVA, founded in 1984. It’s named for the estate of one of the biggest proponents of American winemaking, Thomas Jefferson, who dreamt his home would be surrounded by flourishing vineyards that could compete with the Old World style of winemaking. Jefferson enlisted the help of notable Italian winemaker Filipo Mazzei, who researched the local terroir and planted thousands of vines around Monticello and at farms nearby. Although the American Revolution cut down Jefferson’s dream, if he walked the Monticello Wine Trail today he might see something closely resembling his vision.
The Monticello AVA, which includes Charlottesville and the four surrounding counties of Albemarle, Greene, Nelson and Orange, is made up of 33 wineries and encompasses 800,000 acres in the area on the eastern slope of the Blue Ridge Mountains. About 30 varieties of grapes are grown here, with some of the most prominent being chardonnay, cabernet franc, merlot and our state grape, viognier.
Virginia winemaking saw a resurgence in 1976 with the founding of Barboursville Vineyards by Gianni Zonin, heir to a family wine enterprise in the Veneto region of Italy. In August, the Daily Meal, which gathers input from wine industry professionals and factors in awards and accolades from wine publications, named Barboursville No. 8 on its 101 Best Wineries in America list (Michael Shaps Wineworks came in at No. 57, Jefferson Vineyards at 94).
What makes it Virginia wine?
Vineyards and wineries in which 85 percent of the fruit comes from the Monticello AVA, with the remainder made up in local grapes from around the state, may enter the Monticello Wine Cup Awards each April.
Statewide regulations are a little less strict: 51 percent of the grapes have to come from Virginia land owned or leased by a winery for that wine to be considered a Virginia farm wine (the label will read American wine).
Some of the larger wineries operate under a different classification: 75 percent of their grapes must come from within the state. And the wines of any winery with 75 percent or more grapes grown in Virginia are labeled Virginia wines.
But Virginia is often overlooked when it comes to making the grade as a top wine region in America, with heavy-hitters like Napa and Sonoma, and New York’s Finger Lakes and Oregon’s Willamette Valley getting all the national headlines. In fact, some wineries in California produce as much wine as all of the wineries in Virginia together. Sadly, in early October, wildfires in Northern California killed 42 people and scorched 240,000 acres, destroying six wineries in the Napa and Sonoma regions.
Locally, we also battle Mother Nature: This fall’s lack of rain caused City Council and the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors to issue mandatory water restrictions earlier in the month—no watering your lawn, take brief showers—to help offset the lower water supply levels (the South Fork Rivanna Reservoir fell to 42 percent capacity in just two months).
But our hot, dry autumn is actually good news for grape growers and vineyard owners. A drier season with more mild temperatures means a longer growing season, which allows the fruit to fully ripen on the vine. That means they are picked at the perfect point of ripeness, when the balance of sugar and acid levels for each variety is at its peak.
This year could not only be a banner year for Virginia winemakers in terms of grape yield, quality of the fruit and thus quality of the wine produced, it could be the year that puts Virginia wine on the map, many say.
Hearty harvest
Emily Pelton couldn’t believe what she was tasting. It was the end of July, and the first sample of sauvignon blanc grapes had just come in from the field at Veritas Vineyard & Winery in Afton, where Pelton is head winemaker.
She expected the berries in a random sampling to be tart, like they usually are, but instead Pelton was hit with a punch of sweetness: “Oh, that’s nice!” she thought.
That was one of the first signs that this year would be “a vintage in our books,” she predicts, up there with her favorite vintages in 2009 and 2010.
Although the area also experienced a drought in 2010, that one caused a surge in sugar in the grapes and fast ripening, which led to a smaller yield, Pelton says. This year, she says they hauled in 382.2 tons of grapes between the 50 acres under vine at her family’s winery and another 50 on farms within 30 minutes’ drive, which will make about 26,000 cases of wine (there are 12 bottles in a case). An average year would yield 15,000 to 20,000 cases for the vineyard.
Emily Pelton, head winemaker at Veritas, helped her parents, Andrew and Patricia Hodson, start the winery in 1999. Photo by Paul Whicheloe
Several factors contributed to this year’s bountiful harvest, says Joy Ting, production manager and head enologist at Michael Shaps Wineworks. For one, there was an early bud break in the spring, which generally makes winemakers and growers nervous, because one cold snap could wipe out their crops. But the milder temperatures held, translating into a longer grape-growing season. Most wineries started picking their first white grape crops at least a week early—Pelton says they started picking August 10, almost two weeks ahead of schedule. King Family picked its first chardonnay grapes for its sparkling wine August 3—a full week earlier than it’s ever harvested. In addition, wineries were still harvesting their last red varieties at normal times (early to mid-October), and were even able to do second-round pickings of certain varieties, such as King’s viognier.
The small amount of rain (our area dodged residual effects from Hurricanes Irma and Maria) meant the threat of disease such as rot was lessened, and it also allowed grapes with more concentrated flavor because the vines could focus on their job—growing fruit.
“I feel like the cabernet franc this year is some of the best cabernet franc that I’ve seen since I’ve been in the industry, about five years,” Ting says. The sauvignon blancs, viognier and rosé don’t need to go through malolactic fermentation, which reduces acidity, and will be released in late summer 2018. Most of the reds like cabernet sauvignon, tannat and petit verdot will continue to age in barrels for another year after being pressed and undergoing malolactic fermentation. They will be available in late 2019. “But I would hesitate to say that, only because I really feel like across the board the fruit was very high quality. From the very early whites all the way through the reds…for Virginia, I feel like it was a really wonderful growing season for us.”
Down to a science
As Carrington King passes by blocks of grapes, he points out their labeling system of using cattle tags on each row: red for merlot, pink for cabernet franc, yellow for petit manseng. We stop near a block of viognier, where people are hand-picking the second harvest of the grape, which will likely be used for a small-batch orange viognier (a method of winemaking in which white grapes are fermented on the skins like a red wine, creating an amber hue and giving the wine “nice tannin”). King’s brother’s father-in-law is out in the field, as is King’s mother, Ellen, picking alongside year-round employees. The vineyard is a family endeavor—David and Ellen King started the vineyard in 1998, and the couple’s three sons now help operate the 327-acre farm and vineyard.
King says all the grapes are handpicked—“It’s hard to find them, you have to hunt way up high,” he says. Gathering berries for sampling (which begins about a week after veraison, when the red grapes go from green to red and the white grapes start softening) is not a very scientific process: Someone grabs a Ziploc bag and walks along a path with a row of vines on either side. While looking straight ahead, he’ll reach in and grab some berries off a cluster, sometimes off the top, sometimes off the bottom, and ping-pong between the two rows to ensure a sampling of berries that get both morning and afternoon sun. By not looking at the berries you pick you’re ensuring as random a sample as possible–our eyes are naturally trained to flesh out the best-looking berries.
“When we’re sampling and trying to get tons per acres we do berry weights and cluster weights. On average our berry weight was lower than most years,” King says. “Typically a winemaker would love to have smaller berries, especially in a red where the ratio of juice to skin favors better color, better tannin, better extraction, because your ratio of juice to skin is higher on the skin side. Now, in central Virginia we don’t know what to call average because it’s been so variable every year.”
Employees of King Family Vineyards handpicked a second harvest of viognier grapes last week. Photo by Paul WhicheloeKing Family winemaker Matthieu Finot and vineyard manager Carrington King sort freshly picked grapes by hand. Photo by Paul Whicheloe
Once the sample comes in the process does turn scientific. The berries are crushed and the juice is strained into a beaker, and a pH meter and a refractometer measure the pH level and percent of soluble solids—the sugar level of the juice. As the sugar accumulates in the grape, the pH level increases. When the grapes are first tested the pH might be 2.8 or 2.9, increasing to 5.3 or 6, as it gets more basic (7 on the pH scale is neutral). But acid is good for wine—if it’s not acidic enough the wine won’t taste balanced. Chardonnay used in sparkling wine, for instance, is picked at a lower pH level of 3 to give the wine an “acidic tingle and freshness,” King says.
“When it gets closer to harvest (three weeks after veraison) we might take samples every few days, to try to say what’s the progression of sugar accumulation and how quickly is the acid going down, to try to find the right balance point of when it’s the right time to pick that grape,” Ting says. “And that’s one of the nice things about not having rain coming. We get to dial that in a little more carefully. If it’s going to rain, we’ll usually pick it before the rain, if we feel like it’s close to ripe. This year we would take samples, and we would almost be able to predict ‘well okay, it looks like it’s gaining such and such sugar per day, so it looks like this weekend it should be right where we want it to get’ and it would be right about where we expected it to be.”
Michael Shaps, which has about 80 acres of vineyard under lease or management in eight counties in the state for its own wines, also does contract winemaking for clients who bring in grapes from their own vineyards, and Ting says grapes from all over the state saw similar consistency this year. Shaps was the original winemaker at King Family, and was succeeded by Matthieu Finot in 2007.
Finot, whose lab is housed in the “newish” production facility at King Family (it’s their fourth harvest in the new building), echoes other winemakers in their love of this year’s crop with good acid, which keeps freshness in the wine and helps it age well.
“I’m very excited with the chardonnay, and the cab franc will just be wonderful this year: good ripening, good color, good tannin extraction,” he says. “I think it’s going to be a key vintage for what we do. We had some rain at the beginning of September, just to give us harvest, then it went back to nice, sunny and dry. On a whole I’m very happy with it. Usually when you talk to the winemaker at this time they’re all depressed…here, it’s like yay!”
Experimental thinking
When asked what her favorite varieties this season are, Pelton lets out a little yelp and squirms in her seat. It’s like asking her to pick a favorite child. She concedes that her sauvignon blanc was “killer” this year—not that the viognier wasn’t—but the sauvignon blanc stands out for its intense aromatics. You can pick out distinct notes of grapefruit and passionfruit, specifically pink grapefruit.
“You can really start diving in there and saying, ‘Ooh, I can smell this!’” she says.
For reds, she names both cabernet franc and petit verdot, but finally settles on cab franc.
King also names their cabernet franc and petit verdot as the red varieties he’s most excited about this year: “The chemistry was amazing,” he says.
King Family hauled in 240 tons of grapes this season from its more than 30 acres, which translates to 12,000 cases. King says demand is going up every year, as is production and new plantings: In 2016 they made 2,200 cases of Crosé, which lasted in their tasting room until July. The year before, they produced 1,800 cases that sold out in September. Each year they’re selling out earlier: They will bottle 4,000 cases of the 2017 vintage of the cult favorite rosé, a staple at summer polo matches at the vineyard.
Although King Family mainly sticks to its stable of wines, it created its small batch series four or five years ago to allow Finot to experiment, and in a banner year like this there’s a little more room to play.
“What’s really fun for us is making these little tiny batches to make very select bottlings,” King says.
Newly released this year for King Family is a wine called Mountain Plains, which was the original name of the family’s property when a 22-year-old Thomas Jefferson, then an attorney, signed the deed. The “super meritage” is a blend of petit verdot, merlot and cabernet franc—two barrels of each.
Currently being processed in King Family’s production facility is a whole cluster petit verdot–pressed with stems and all–much the way they would have done in the Old World when grapes were crushed underfoot. The stems give the wine more tannins, Finot says, but that can be risky. He points to a similar experiment a few years ago with a dry petit manseng that is now being served in the tasting room. When he first tried it he thought it was very harsh and acidic, out of balance, and he considered dumping it. But he kept aging it in barrels, and after two years he ended up with a drinkable wine.
“Now it’s one of the wines I really love,” he says.
Berry good
Although the viognier grape, which has intense, complex aromas of stone fruit with tropical notes, was named our state’s signature grape in 2011 (its thick skin can stand up to Virginia’s heat and humidity), it comes in as No. 6 in grape production totals from a 2016 commercial grape report prepared for the Virginia Wine Board. Here are our state’s top five:
1.Cabernet franc (929 tons)
2. Chardonnay (760 tons)
3. Merlot (620 tons)
4. Cabernet sauvignon (533 tons)
5. Petit verdot (495 tons)
Blenheim Vineyards, which made roughly 4,500 cases in 2016 and will bottle 8,000 cases this year, has added the albariño grape, which generally flourishes in Spain, to its portfolio. Ting points to Bleinheim and Afton Mountain Vineyards as early champions of the grape variety, good for making a fresh white wine. Kirsty Harmon, winemaker and general manager at Blenheim, says both the albariño and sauvignon blanc did well this year, and she made a little wine out of pinot noir, which she hasn’t been able to attempt in years past.
“I’d say that it is potentially the best harvest at Blenheim since I’ve been winemaker for 10 years,” she says.
And Veritas’ Pelton is experimenting too, but less with grapes and more on winemaking styles and the growing process. In 2014 she helped found the now statewide Winemakers Research Exchange in which wineries in Virginia can submit experiments for blind taste tests. Last year the exchange had 10 different tastings; Pelton submitted four or five projects.
The future of local wines
Today there are more than 260 wineries statewide compared with 193 in 2010. In 2015, the wine and grape industry brought in $1.37 billion, and wine production nearly doubled in that time frame from 439,500 cases to 705,200, according to the Virginia Wine Board’s 2015 Economic Impact Study.
Today’s wineries, with careful site selection for plantings and fruit monitoring along with evolving winemaking, are a far cry from the early days 40 years ago, King says. He says he’s often asked who his competitors are. His answer: He doesn’t have any. He says all the winemakers, vineyard owners and grape growers are friendly with one another and eager to share insights to create the best wine and customer experience they can.
“It’s a very intimate thing to sell something that you’re going to imbibe—it’s not tennis shoes or a belt buckle. It’s going in your body,” King says. “If someone has a bad experience somewhere, they might write off Virginia wine.”
Two weeks ago Pelton traveled to Charleston, South Carolina, for a luncheon hosted by Garden & Gun magazine. Only Virginia wines, including Veritas and Early Mountain Vineyards, were served, and guests didn’t know what they were drinking until Pelton walked around to each table to chat with the luncheon’s attendees. Their feedback? They were surprised by the wine’s origins, but they loved it.
“I would just like to point out we have such pride in our Southern food culture,” Pelton says. “I’d like people to start having the same [feeling] about their local brewery, winery and cidery.”
