Tag: VIrginia Wine

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The East Coast revival is a boon for Virginia wine

Dr. Konstantin Frank learned his craft at ancient wineries in (then) Soviet Georgia before coming to the United States in 1951. Once here, he advocated for the plantings of the Vitis vinifera grape varietals that dominate our current wine business. Courtesy of Dr. Konstantin Frank Winery.

The Virginia wine scene exists within a larger post-Prohibition wine revival sweeping across the United States. Before Prohibition, the East Coast had a thriving wine trade. But following the 1920 constitutional ban on alchohol, only a few wineries remained standing, such as New York’s Brotherhood Winery (in operation since 1839), which produced sacramental wine to avoid shutting down.

Once the law was repealed in 1933, it took several decades for the East Coast wine industry to bounce back. One New York wine producer, Dr. Konstantin Frank, who established his winery in 1962, helped to shape the new direction.

Frank vociferously extolled a particular grape species—Vitis vinifera—and believed that indigenous and hybrid species produced inferior wines. Vinifera grapes are a European species that originated in the Caucasus region several thousand years ago, and most familiar wines (chardonnay, viognier, cabernet, etc.) are vinifera.

By 1973, a Vinifera Wine Growers Association popped up (now known as the Atlantic Seaboard Wine Association) and, along with the findings of Dr. Frank, began to influence East Coast winegrowers and the beginnings of today’s Virginia wine trade, where vintners such as Dennis Horton became intrigued by vinifera grapes.

Virginia’s focus on smaller-scale boutique wineries has helped our wine trails stand out as unique
attractions for agro-tourism. Most Virginia wineries are small family businesses, and you are likely to find one of the owners in the tasting room when you visit.

The U.S.’s post-Prohibition revival has made the grape business more profitable, partly because of the higher prices wine grapes can fetch. A near decade of statistics from 2005 through 2014 show that the country’s total grape production has not changed dramatically: Both at the beginning and end of the decade, the U.S. produced approximately 7.8 million tons of grapes. But the average price per ton increased about 67 percent during that time, and a $3.4 billion industry grew into a $5.8 billion industry.

Zooming in on the East Coast, the major players in order of grape ton production are New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, North Carolina and Georgia. Virginia’s biggest market competitor is New York. In 2014, New York crushed 44,000 tons of wine grapes, while Virginia crushed 8,600 tons. In volume, New York outpaced Virginia by about 80 percent. But New York has only about 20 percent more wineries than Virginia. This data demonstrates that Virginia wineries are producing significantly fewer grape tons per winery, and this is one of the reasons why Virginia’s emerging wine scene is so special.

Virginia’s focus on smaller-scale boutique wineries has helped our wine trails stand out as unique attractions for agro-tourism. Most Virginia wineries are small family businesses, and you are likely to find one of the owners in the tasting room when you visit. Many wineries produce just enough wine to sell out of their tasting rooms, but not enough to enter the larger U.S. or international market.

And while U.S. data shows little growth in grape tons but intense growth in revenue, Virginia numbers demonstrate explosive growth in both grape tons and revenues. In 2005, Virginia produced about 5,600 tons of grapes; by 2014 this grew to about 8,000 tons.

Grape crush

Virginia’s largest wine market competitor on the East Coast is New York, with Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Georgia also being key players. But Virginia’s lower number of wineries compared with New York means we are producing fewer grape tons per winery, thus making our boutique wineries stand out.

2014 grape harvest yield:

New York: 44,000 tons

Virginia: 8,600 tons

One thing Virginia and New York have in common is a local restaurant scene that supports local wine. In New York, most serious restaurant wine lists feature a New York selection, and the same holds true in Virginia. You’ll even find a few Virginia restaurants such as Field & Main (Marshall), Revolutionary Soup (Charlottesville), the former Brookville (Charlottesville) and The Roosevelt (Richmond) pouring almost exclusively Virginia wines. This synergy between local food and wine is helping to create and define new regional cuisines. Take, for instance, the magic combination of fresh soft-shell crabs paired with a local petit manseng. The pairings help create a lasting dining culture that can sustain long-term business and promote regionality.

Over the last four decades, the East Coast wine scene has shaken off the dust that settled over a diminished industry crippled by Prohibition. Today, these wineries are poised to take the next step in creating lasting impacts on local culture and cuisines.

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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Virginia Tech’s impact on what, where and when to grow

Virginia Tech professor Tony Wolf’s experiments and monitoring of Virginia terroir have an ongoing influence on our region’s winemakers. Courtesy of Virginia Tech

You’ll often find a university at the epicenter of many of the world’s great wine regions. Learning institutions help drive and fund research and increase wine quality. Since 1905, the University of California, Davis has conducted vine and wine research just outside of Sacramento. Its findings have had an immeasurable impact on winemaking in Napa and Sonoma. Hochschule Geisenheim University, a wine-focused institute since 1872, sits in the heart of German wine country and has a far-reaching influence throughout Germany. The University of Bordeaux offers a master’s in vineyard and winery management or a doctorate in oenology and viticulture. Cornell University offers programs in viticulture and has buttressed the explosive wine scene in the Finger Lakes region. In Virginia, we have Virginia Tech, where a significant part of the agriculture program focuses on grapes.

VT’s influence on Virginia’s wine industry can, at times, be difficult to pinpoint. Much of the research and information is freely available online, so winemakers may read an article, apply that knowledge in their own vineyard, and you’d never know that VT had a subtle impact on the wine you drink. In speaking to movers and shakers in the Virginia wine scene, their responses indicated two main areas where VT’s research shapes our industry: viticulture and winemaking research results that winemakers can apply to their products, and VT’s site selection-tool that helps wineries pinpoint great places for grape growing.

At VT, “Tony Wolf and Bruce Zoecklein (now retired) were major contributors to the Virginia wine industry’s growth and improvement in the 1990s and 2000s,” says wine writer Dave McIntyre. “Their research influenced the selection of vineyard sites and grape varieties, as well as techniques in the wineries.”

When I contacted Joy Ting, enologist at Michael Shaps Wineworks, and asked her about VT’s impact, she laughed because she was holding Zoecklein’s article on sparkling wine, which she was in the middle of referencing before tackling a sparkling wine project.

“For me, [the] biggest impact has been the breadth of information about which Bruce Zoecklein wrote,” says Ting. “It doesn’t matter what question I have about wine chemistry, Bruce has written a paper about it. His academic research was vast, but he also wrote Enology Notes, a free online database of short articles collected from his newsletters over the years. It’s a great topical reference for all things wine chemistry. If that wasn’t enough, Bruce was (and still is, despite his retirement) always available to answer questions personally.”

Emily Pelton, winemaker at Veritas Vineyards & Winery, graduated from Virginia Tech and studied with Zoecklein. As a founding member of the Winemaker’s Research Exchange, Pelton maintains a commitment to research and its practical application to Virginia wine.

Virginia’s unique climate faces a host of challenges that many other wine regions don’t confront, such as hurricanes, humidity, hail, frost and local pests such as turkeys, bugs and deer. “When I read the enology literature, much of the work is done in areas whose viticulture is so different that I wonder if the results really apply here,” Ting says. “Also, some of the grape varieties we feature are not widely used elsewhere in the U.S. (viognier, cabernet franc, petit manseng). Virginia Tech helps bridge that gap. The research they do is driven by the issues we see here.”

“Tony Wolf’s research at his experimental vineyard near Winchester, along with his regular updates on weather conditions and disease threats, continue to help growers cope with the challenges Virginia’s tricky environment throws at them,” says McIntyre.

“Their work with vineyard pests and controls has made clean wine making possible,” says local winemaker Jake Busching, with Michael Shaps Wineworks. “We are constantly finding new things that like to damage our fruit. Virginia Tech has been there to find fixes and new methodology for remediation every time.”

VT’s focus on local challenges for vineyards offers practical and custom-tailored research results to winemakers around the state. The application of this research has, in part, been the wind in the sails of Virginia’s recent wine boom.

VT has also developed “a site-selection tool that helps you to see if a specific plot of land is good for growing grapes,” notes Ting. “It basically allows you to locate the plot by address or latitude and longitude, then use a drawing tool to specify where on that site you want to plant. From there, it uses nationally available climate and soil databases to help you see if the site is suitable for grape growing. Since site selection is so important, this is a great first step.”

Ben Jordan, winemaker at Early Mountain Vineyards, thinks the future of higher quality in Virginia wine is to secure the best vineyard sites that aren’t necessarily right next to the winery. He points to VT’s online site-evaluation tool and Wolf as a resource in site selection. “I have been trying to find an awesome site so we can push quality,” he says.

Like so many other wine centers around the globe, the academic world has the ability to ignite a complex and vital relationship between those who study wine and viticulture and those who operate wineries. Many of the world’s great regions thrive because of a healthy link to universities, and it will be fascinating to see how the relationship between Virginia Tech and local wineries continues to develop in the future.

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New momentum has Virginia winemakers racing to meet demand

Robert Harllee of Market Street Wineshops has watched an increase in Virginia wine sales at his various locations. Photo by Martyn Kyle

As Virginia’s tobacco industry wanes, the food and wine sector builds momentum. With more than 80 cheesemakers in the state, an intense focus on sustainability at farms such as Polyface, Free Union Grass, Radical Roots and Wolf Creek, and a large, passionate beverage industry, the state is poised to contribute a unique chapter to America’s evolving culinary story. Virginia’s wine industry, in particular, brings much to the table and shows no signs of slowing down.

Restaurants around the state have noticed increased demand for Virginia wine in the last decade. Some early champions of local wine recall the first Virginia wines on their lists: Ivy Inn wine director Farrell Vangelopoulos carried early bottlings from Barboursville and Whitehall vineyards in the mid-to-late 1990s. And C&O’s former sommelier, Elaine Futhey, remembers making the drive to Linden Vineyards to pick up dessert wine.

Today, most restaurants carry between five and 12 different Virginia wine labels on their list. Justin Ross at Parallel 38 pours 12 state wines by the glass, including some on tap. Neal Wavra’s highly anticipated new restaurant, Field & Main, in Marshall, pours mostly Virginia wines by the glass—18, to be exact, plus four Virginia ciders. Booth Hardy, of Richmond’s Barrel Thief, has a penchant for rosé and has enjoyed watching that category grow over the last five years.

Wineries are feeling the momentum of the industry. “We’ve more than doubled our production in less than 10 years, and it is still a challenge to meet demand,” says King Family Vineyards winemaker Matthieu Finot. “But it’s nice to be able to focus on making a high-quality product as we grow, knowing that the demand is behind us.”

Rachel Stinson Vrooman, winemaker at Stinson Vineyards, is also under pressure to meet high-volume demands. “We opened our tasting room in 2011 and have seen a crazy growth curve in the industry since then,” says Vrooman. “It’s almost impossible to predict when and where it will level out. Our total sales in 2015 were up 27 percent from 2014, which can be challenging to maintain in terms of production and inventory. We’ve tried to slow things down in 2016 by cutting back on advertising. Agritourism is strong, and more and more people are seeking out specific wines and even specific vintages.”

State statistics mirror the feeling of growth among wineries and restaurants. Governor Terry McAuliffe recently announced record sales for fiscal year 2016, “with more than 556,500 cases, or over 6.6 million bottles, sold,” representing a 6 percent increase from 2015 sales and a 34 percent increase since 2010.

Local vintage variation likely plays a part in the numbers. Some of last year’s growth might reflect the outstanding 2015 vintage that brought in a large, high-quality crop. And it’s possible we may see a dip next year, because early-season frost damage decreased the 2016 harvest in many areas across the state.

But aside from supply statistics, Robert Harllee of Market Street Wineshops points to consumer trends driving a new kind of demand. At his stores, he’s noticed that “people are making more regular purchases of Virginia wine, and many seem to be younger people. Ten years ago you’d see people getting a bottle of Virginia wine for a special-occasion dinner or a special gift, but now I’m seeing more people get Virginia wine for everyday drinking.”

And the variety of Virginia wine has expanded, which attracts a broader audience. “In the last couple years,” Harllee says, “we’re seeing a lot of unique grape varieties outside of the classic international varieties, like Jump Mountain’s grüner veltliner, lemberger at Ox-Eye, vermentino and fiano at Barboursville, and petit manseng and nebbiolo are doing quote well with several producers. I’m drinking a little more Virginia wine now, myself.”

At Wine Warehouse, “we try to have a selection of Virginia wines from around the state,” says manager Geoff Macilwaine. “One of our better sellers is Lovingston Winery, and the winemaker, Riaan [Rossouw], we think, is a terrific winemaker.” Macilwaine points to Lovingston’s 2010 Meritage as a benchmark local example.

The momentum of Virginia’s local wine trade is a confluence of increased interest in wine, high-quality production from dedicated wineries and support from the state level. “Virginia is making intelligent, inspired wines,” Vrooman says, “and the word is starting to get out.”

One of the most exciting aspects of the wine boom is how it fits in with the other emerging industries in the state—it pairs perfectly with all of the carefully farmed vegetables, cheeses and meats produced by thoughtful local farmers. Virginia food and wine forces are joining together in restaurants, and with all of the creative new pairings out there, we just might be watching the genesis of a new food and wine center of the United States.

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Ribolla gialla and the prospects of an Octagon bianco

Luca Paschina sets his sights on a bianco version of Barboursville's highly regarded Octagon label. Photo: Amy Jackson

I heard about a patch of ribolla gialla vines in Barboursville, and I had to go and see them to find out what was happening with these special grapes.

Luca Paschina, the winemaker at Barboursville Vineyards, first tasted wine made from ribolla gialla about 30 years ago. “It was the mid-1980s in Italy, and I was dining at a restaurant that brought in wines from all over Italy,” says Paschina. “This was unique, because many restaurants focus on their local wines.” It glowed a deep yellow, and Paschina recalls of the grape variety, “It had a name you can’t forget.”

Ribolla gialla (ree-BOWL-ah jee-AH-lah) is a white grape variety that ripens to gold. It has an unusual amount of tannins for a white, which translates to a wide variety of wine styles. It can be made into a dense, dry wine, or it can be fermented with the skins, resulting in a rich amber color and lush tannins.

Affectionately called “ribolla” by those in the industry, the grape has a history in written papal and tax records that can be traced as far back as 1296. Over the last 700 centuries, ribolla’s popularity has waned and waxed in its likely birthplace of Friuli, Italy’s “bootstrap” in the northeast that borders Slovenia. Plantings thrive in the region, but you don’t find the grape in many other places.

You do, however, find some prized ribolla vines in California. Ribolla owes its California plantings to the late George Vare. After an inspiring visit to Friuli—Vare had been on the hunt for pinot grigio—he sourced some ribolla gialla from Josko Gravner in Italy, and ultimately grafted over his pinot grigio. Vare’s love of ribolla affected his winemaking friends, and today you can count several producers of California ribolla.

The California ribolla interest was partly sparked by Gravner, a winemaker who became disillusioned with modern winemaking and went in the opposite direction. He traveled to the country of Georgia, studying its vineyards and the once-common technique of fermenting in clay amphoras. Gravner has steadfastly produced unique ribolla bottlings since the 1990s, and his philosophy has spread to others throughout Europe, and now the United States.

The California vine nursery Novavine took note of the movement and started cultivating ribolla. Nurseries are often the unsung heroes of the wine business—they select and test vine clones that will be ideal for wineries, then wineries purchase ready-to-plant vines that have already been through a quarantine period, ensuring their health and quality. Many of the grape plantings you see at local wineries wouldn’t be possible without such nurseries.

Paschina took note of Novavine’s unique Italian varieties, and in 2015 he brought ribolla gialla vines to Barboursville. When new vines arrive from a nursery, they don’t look like much. They’ve been grafted onto special root stocks, they are already 1 year old, and they look like bundles of twigs. Paschina planted the experimental ribolla vines in late March/early April 2015, after working the ground and preparing it so the young “roots can dig and develop,” he says.

I asked to see the ribolla and Paschina obliged, but as we climbed into a truck he warned that I might not be impressed with the fruit after the crippling series of frosts Virginia experienced this past spring. The vines have been in the ground less than a year and a half and haven’t had much time to develop.

We pulled up to the small patch of baby ribolla vines and were delighted to find healthy looking plants with promising fruit. Despite the frosts, and the youth of the vines, the vines seemed to be making themselves at home and a sense of nascent possibility hung in the air around the bunches. Usually, you don’t get enough fruit to work with until vines are three to five years old. But perhaps the ribolla might find a home in the upcoming 2016 vintage.

Paschina plucked a ripe ribolla berry from the vine for me to taste. The skin was gold and tasty, and slightly tannic in a chalky way. The fragrant juice was sweet and delicious, and the seeds had started to turn from green to nutty brown. These wine grapes had character.

What will Paschina do with the ribolla? It’s too soon to tell. The vines are so young it’s not possible to foresee how they will perform in the long run.

Paschina pauses for a moment. “I’m still deciding,” he says. He might make a 100 percent ribolla gialla wine, but, if so, he would likely make a crisp white wine instead of a Gravner-style amber wine with extended skin contact.

He also shared his thoughts on a different bottling. For a while now Paschina has been fomenting the idea of a Barboursville Octagon wine made from white grapes. An Octagon bianco, if you will. He’ll likely blend several different Barboursville grapes, including a hefty amount of the special Italian varieties he’s been working with, such as the ribolla gialla.

Barboursville Vineyards’ Octagon red blend has become a cornerstone ambassador of Virginia’s wine industry. Could an Octagon bianco also become a Virginia benchmark wine? And what could this mean for ribolla gialla, a little-known grape with, as Paschina says, “a name you can’t forget”?

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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Local winemakers forge a groundbreaking research exchange

Emily Pelton is one of the founding members of the Virginia Winemaker’s Research Exchange, a group making an impact on the future of wine. Photo: Eric Kelley

The idea for a research exchange sparked when a few local winemakers gathered to share their bottles and ideas. For the first couple of years, the group included Kirsty Harmon (Blenheim), Emily Pelton (Veritas), Matthieu Finot (King Family), Ben Jordan (Early Mountain), Scott Dwyer (Pollak), Jake Busching (Michael Shaps), Michael Heny (Horton) and Stephen Barnard (Keswick). They’d bring a unique wine experiment for the group to try, and these friendly exchanges helped hone each winemaker’s approach.

Without a control bottle, it was difficult to tell if the experiment created the difference in taste, or if it was something else giving the wine its flavor—like a different barrel or the growing conditions that year. “It’s important to have a formal process,” says Dwyer. “Before, when we were doing it informally, there wasn’t a control process.” So, each of them carried out a specific trial that harvest, and came back with a control bottle to taste side-by-side with the experiment bottle. Thus the Winemaker’s Research Exchange was born.

“Now, we each test a single variable,” says Dwyer. They bring a control bottle and an experiment bottle, with the only difference being their chosen variable.

What are they looking for? Each winery is interested in different research, and the beauty of this exchange is that the wineries can focus on a project important to them.

Some have chosen to test fermentation vessels. How will the same grapes taste when they are fermented in, say, concrete containers versus steel containers?

Some wineries are looking for ways to use less sulfur without sacrificing the wine’s stability. If grapes are not pressed immediately after being harvested, they’ll be prone to spoilage, and this is a key moment when most winemakers use sulfur to preserve their fruit.

Some of the trials test other natural antioxidants and preservation methods. If a different preservation method yields an equally delicious or better wine with lower sulfur levels and fewer inputs, then all winemakers in the state benefit from that research and can choose to use that method if they wish.

Other wineries have chosen to test ways to improve the color of wine. It’s long been a trick in the northern Rhône region of France to add a small percentage of white grapes to a red wine fermentation. This adds some aromatics and helps stabilize the color. Can Virginia wineries use grape co-fermentations to improve color?

Usually, a winery will have the resources to perform one or two experiments each harvest. With the research exchange, winemakers benefit from the results of dozens of experiments each harvest—far expanding the experimental scope of what one winery can accomplish each year.

You can find published academic studies on some of these topics, but the exchange takes it one step further and brings these trials to life with tastings. Sure, a winemaker can read a scientist’s description of how wine will be different if fermented in concrete versus steel, but tasting this difference can really drive home the concept and influence a winery to change its status quo.

“At the end of the day, the tasting is really emphasized,” says Pelton. “We want to make sure that you are actually tasting the variable that you are testing.”

Pelton has been delighted with the success of the project. “The coolest part was how many people showed up to our tastings,” she says. The wines are tasted and evaluated blind. “It’s hard to pour your wine blind in front of your peers,” say Pelton. “And yet, we kept having large turnouts.”

The blind tasting helps keep the topics in focus. “We didn’t want it to turn into a competition,” says Dwyer. “We wanted it to be an open exchange of research.”

Aside from the obvious benefit of personal palate development, the organized tastings give winemakers valuable feedback. “If 75 percent of the tasters preferred the trial over the control, that means something,” Dwyer says.

Setting up organized trials took time and organization, and in 2014 the group received a grant from the Monticello Wine Trail and founded the Winemaker’s Research Exchange. The power of this idea gained so much momentum that in 2015 the Virginia Wine Board funded the group. “It got more rigorous,” Dwyer says.

“In year two, we tightened up our consistency by ensuring that all analysis was done at the same laboratory,” says Pelton.

The wine industry around the state took note. “The Virginia Wine Board was excited to see the initial research and encouraged a statewide project,” Pelton says. “They are investing in quality wine and they pushed us to grow.” This year the group expanded to include all of Virginia, and formalized its name as the Virginia Winemaker’s Research Exchange. The VWRE split the state into five regions, each with its own regional director.

This all points to good things for Virginia wine-lovers. Rarely in the wine world do you find such a systematic focus on quality improvement. The VWRE is also committed to transparency: Its results are available on its website, winemakersresearch exchange.com.

Midway into the group’s third formal year, it’s attracting attention from several other states—mostly from winemakers curious about their specific trials and winemaking organizations interested in the overall model. This idea, hatched by a few innovative Monticello winemakers, is not only benefitting Virginia wine, but also has the potential to benefit the United States’ entire wine industry.

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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Local rosé is a refreshing summer choice

Stinson Vineyards’ Bandol, France-style rosé is made from the few mourvèdre grapes found in Virginia. Photo: Ryan Jones

Rosé wine can be made a few different ways. Some winemakers harvest grapes specifically for rosé and press them, keeping them on the skins for a short period. Other winemakers press their red wine harvest, and bleed off some of the initial pink-colored juice to ferment separately as rosé. This technique, called saignée, a word derived from “to bleed,” will help to concentrate the red wine fermentation by increasing the skin-to-juice ratio. You can also make rosé by simply adding red wine to white wine, and most rosé Champagne is made this way.

Despite the method, in the heat of summer, a glass of rosé will hit the spot, and there are several local bottlings to choose from. Here are a few favorites:

Growlers of rosé can be found at Michael Shaps’ new outpost on Avon Street Extended. It’s called Wineworks Extended, and it opened for business a few weeks ago. From the street this looks like a large warehouse, but around the back of the building, enter into a sleek industrial tasting room with several high-top tables made from reclaimed barrels. The walls are lined with the many wines Shaps produces in France, and the centerpiece of the space is a cozy bar with wines on tap. Shaps is enchanted by the quotidian traditions in Burgundy where locals bring a glass jug to their favorite vigneron and fill it up for daily consumption. This outpost should function in a similar way with the growler program. The rosé on tap is tart and crisp, with a deep pink hue.

Blenheim Vineyards also offers growlers, but currently they are only used for a few select reds and whites. Blenheim rosé comes in a bottle, and like most of winemaker Kirsty Harmon’s wines, it is bright and juicy—pure refreshment. “I like it because it is so versatile,” Harmon says. “It can go with so many different dishes.” Harmon likes to make her rosé with slightly lower alcohol, “so you can drink more of it,” she says with a wink. The best place to drink it is on the tasting room deck, along with an expansive view of their estate vineyards.

Michael Shaps. Photo: Martyn Kyle
Michael Shaps. Photo: Martyn Kyle

There is also the locally famous Crosé made by Matthieu Finot at King Family Vineyards. Over the last few years this wine has reached a cult-like status, and with good reason: Finot puts much thought and effort into his rosé production. “It’s always merlot. We do about two days of skin contact, because you get the flavor from the skin,” says Finot. He harvests it before it becomes extremely ripe in order to preserve some of the acidity. The result: an aromatically interesting wine with subtle herbal notes and a rich center contrasted by a very refreshing acidity on the finish.

Jeff White at Glen Manor Vineyards makes his Morales rosé based on a special block of merlot at his family’s farm. He also blends in some saignée cabernet sauvignon, petit verdot and cabernet franc to make a proper Bordeaux-style rosé. White’s rosé comes from a unique farm, recognized by the Commonwealth of Virginia as a Century Farm, belonging to his family since 1901. As a fourth-generation farmer, he switched his hill parcels from orchards to grapes in 1995, and started making wine.

At Stinson Vineyards, Rachel Stinson Vrooman and her father, Scott Stinson, take inspiration from the rosé traditions in Bandol, France. They’ve sought out some of the few mourvèdre grape vines in Virginia, and in true Bandol style, this rosé has breadth, depth, a lush fruit character and a hint of unctuousness. “The mourvèdre rosé started as an experimental wine,” Vrooman says. “We didn’t really know if anyone else would be interested in it, but those were the type of rosés we like to drink. Our consulting winemaker Matthieu Finot worked in Bandol when he was younger and was very familiar with the style of wine we wanted to make. Mourvèdre is a super-tricky grape. In the vineyard it ripens late and has tight clusters that are susceptible to rot and mildew. But the challenges are part of what makes it fun to work with.” This wine is so delicious, and made in such small quantities, that it tends to sell out by the end of the summer.

A crisp counterpoint to the rich intensity of Stinson’s mourvèdre rosé is the blush from Early Mountain Vineyards. Like Blenheim, King Family and Glen Manor, merlot is the primary base for the Early Mountain rosé. As one of its most popular wines, the Early Mountain rosé certainly delivers refreshment.

Cheers to finding your own perfect glass of rosé this summer!

–Erin Scala

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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Michael Shaps Wineworks opens new facility and other restaurant news

Wineworks Extended, owned by Michael Shaps and located on Avon Street Extended, is a tasting room arm of Michael Shaps Wineworks. Photo: Martyn Kyle

Wegmans hasn’t opened its hallowed doors yet, but at least one new business nearby is up and running. Located at 1585 Avon St. Extended, Wineworks Extended is the newest iteration of local custom contract winemaking operation Michael Shaps Wineworks. The warehouse was originally scouted out as a bottling facility, and owner Shaps says he figured why not turn the extra space into a tasting room?

“We thought it would be a great opportunity since our original tasting room is pretty far out of town,” he says, referring to the Michael Shaps Wineworks location on Harris Creek Way, about 20 minutes south of Charlottesville.

The newly constructed tasting room, which features high tables, brightly colored stools and floor-to-ceiling shelves stocked with bottles of wine, opened for business a few weeks ago. Guests can choose between two tasting options: the $6 flight of wines on tap or the $8 flight of “Michael’s picks” bottled wines. Each tasting includes four 40 ml pours, and the flight-style presentation allows you to compare and contrast rather than rinsing out one glass between each different wine. 

Claire Hart, who works in the tasting room, says each flight always features at least one red and one white—they’ll rotate every few weeks, with more whites during the summer and more reds during the winter.

The wines available to take home include a large selection of Michael Shaps wine (both in bottles and boxes), like the 2015 Viognier and 2015 Odette. There’s also the option of taking home a growler of wine—a full liter for around $15.

“The wine on tap is styled a little differently,” Shaps says. “They’re fresh, young wines that are made for immediate consumption, and with the growler you’re getting a better deal.”

For more information about tastings and hours of operation, check out the Wineworks Extended Facebook page.

All hopped up

First the bad news: The strawberry-ginger cider the team at Potter’s Craft Cider made in collaboration with Kardinal Hall is all dried up. But the good news is Potter’s just released a new seasonal style. Introducing the Passionfruit Mosaic Cider—infused with passionfruit and hopped with tropical, fruity Mosaic hops, it screams summertime. But it won’t be around for long. This stuff is in limited supply, so be sure to keep an eye out for it at restaurants and bars around town before the supply runs out.

Lucky libations

’Tis the season for new booze, apparently. Silverback Distillery rolled out its new Blackback Lucky 13 Rye Whiskey just in time for Father’s Day last weekend. Aged for 13 months in virgin white oak barrels, the rye is available for sipping in half-ounce pours (either neat or with mixers) at the distillery in Afton. You won’t find it on the shelves of ABC stores yet, but you can take a bottle home with you from the tasting room. According to co-owner Denver Riggleman, the mash is 67 percent rye, 22 percent white corn and 11 percent malted barley, and all the grains are sourced in Virginia.

As for future releases as the whiskey continues to age, Silverback plans to make this a Father’s Day tradition. So, if you missed this year’s release event (complete with cigars and food), you’ll have plenty of opportunities in the future. And the whiskey will only get better.

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Living

The Elements Hot Yoga strives for approachable hot yoga practice

The Elements Hot Yoga owners Monica McGee and Kendall Selfe aim to create a place where yogis have a place to grow and feel accomplished. Photo: Martyn Kyle

Yoga is humbling. No matter how often or how many different methods you practice, a class or a pose will always come around to remind you that you’re human and your body’s strength and limitations vary from day to day. Take, for example, last Wednesday’s 9:30am 90-minute hot flow class at The Elements Hot Yoga. A small group of experienced students flowed their way through an intense sequence that included warrior poses, chaturanga and inversions, while co-owner and teacher Monica McGee gently offered variations on poses throughout the class.

“We want people to feel successful, and have a place to grow but also feel accomplished,” McGee says. “The purpose of it all is sustainability. We can’t always expect our bodies to perform at the same level. We would be defeating ourselves.”

Once the class was warmed up (in the truest sense—the room was heated to 105 degrees), McGee had everyone spend time on inversions. She gave the experienced yogis who were comfortable popping upside down onto their hands the go-ahead to do their thing, and spent the next several minutes walking the others through the steps of forearm stands and handstands.

“When you go somewhere and you can’t do something, it doesn’t give you that feeling of accomplishment afterward,” says co-owner Kendall Selfe. “We try to pause, like Monica did with the inversions, and show how to do something, so it gives people the tools they need. If you can’t go into a forearm balance yet but you can go into dolphin, you can work on that instead of just sitting there staring at people thinking, ‘I can’t do that.’”

McGee and Selfe both started practicing at Hot House Yoga in Richmond a few years ago. They quickly became hooked on the method—and each other—and have since become certified teachers, combined their families and moved to Charlottesville together to open The Elements Hot Yoga.

Located at 340 Greenbrier Dr., the new studio made its debut on March 18. It offers classes inspired by the four elements: earth, water, fire and air. The earth classes are all about stability—available for all levels and beginner-friendly, the sequence of 33 stationary postures is rooted in the standing mountain pose. Water classes are more flowing, with smooth transitions between poses and the intention to “match breath with movement.”

The owners haven’t yet rolled out the fire and air classes, which will be the second level of the earth and water practices, respectively.

“We have to teach to the levels of everybody,” McGee says. “It depends on how our studio grows. When we find that the people are getting strong enough for those classes then we’ll roll them out. Otherwise, it risks injury.”

For beginners who may be anxious about the heat, there’s no use in sugarcoating it—the room is hot. Really hot. But those high temperatures are believed to speed up detoxification in the body, release beneficial hormones and improve overall cardiovascular health and blood flow. McGee and Selfe know that the heat can be intimidating, and they deliberately chose a heating system to keep the room clean and safe while also hot. According to McGee, the system consists of a furnace pumping heat and an energy recovery system that controls airflow and CO2 to bring in fresh air, plus a UV light that cleans pathogens and odors from the air and a humidity controller.

“The purpose is not to give you a bear hug, but to get you sweating,” McGee says. “When I see people are sweating and are successful, I leave the heat where it is. When they’re not sweating, I turn it up.”

It’s hot, and it’s not easy. But it’s also approachable, and there’s nothing better than that cold lavender towel at the end of class.

“I think for people that do not practice hot yoga, the idea is scary,” she says. “To go into a hot room, they think it’s an extreme workout, which it can be, but it doesn’t have to be. To redefine what hot yoga is can take time.”

Classes are available seven days a week. Visit ehotyoga.com for more information. 

Yoga town

“We’re starting to make friends in the fitness community, and we’ve experienced great welcoming from everybody,” says Monica McGee. “We acknowledge that there are so many paths and ways for people to find mindfulness.”

As the health and fitness community in Charlottesville continues to grow, more and more studios and events are popping up. Here are just a couple that have come across our radar recently:

Tuesday evening yoga at IX Art Park: This pay-what-you-can class is taught by Julia J. von Briesen every Tuesday evening through June 7. commongroundcville.org

Zin & Zen: Hosted by Hydra Yoga Spa, this local wine and vinyasa spring series features 60-minute Saturday yoga classes at nearby wineries. And wine, of course.

Related Links:

Feb. 28, 2014: Hot Yoga Charlottesville celebrates 10 years of classes at 105 degrees

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Living

An ancient process brings a new trend to Virginia wine

King Family Vineyards’ 2014 skin-fermented Orange Viognier is an exciting step toward a new genre option for Virginia wines. Photo: Rammelkamp Foto

Named for its deep amber hue, amber wine (also called orange wine) is skin-fermented white wine. Fermenting white grapes on their skins is a technique that once pervaded the ancient wine world.

“It’s probably the oldest way to make white wine in the world,” says winemaker Matthieu Finot of King Family Vineyards. But despite the ancientness of this technique, most producers press off white grape juice and ferment it alone, without the skins. Amber wine is a rare thing these days, but the idea is gaining momentum, and amber wines are starting to appear on wine lists.

When white grapes are fermented with the skins, different chemical reactions occur and you end up with a distinct genre of wine. Three main things happen in the process: Acid levels drop, aromatics and tannin levels rise and the pH of the wine increases, which changes the spectrum of microbiology that can survive in the fermentation.

In tasting an amber wine, the expectations are different than white wine—you want to taste for a bit lower acid and a rounder palate, soft tannins and more intense aromatics. In the way that you don’t expect the same experience from rosé as red wine, amber wine differentiates itself from white.

Skin contact in general isn’t all that unusual. Winemakers often use small amounts of skin contact (a few hours to a few days) to make minute adjustments during their fermentations. For instance, at Michael Shaps Wineworks they use a little skin contact on their petit manseng (a notoriously high-acid grape) to drop the acid levels into a more palate-pleasing zone. But lengthy skin maceration that results in an amber-colored wine is rare.

One of the few places in the world that has been continuously making amber wines for thousands of years is the country of Georgia. Georgia’s wine culture, richly explored in Alice Feiring’s new book, For the Love of Wine, orbits around qvevri, or large terra-cotta vessels, usually lined with beeswax and buried underground for temperature control. Qvevri are used to carry out extended skin fermentations of both red and white wines.

When Italian winemaker Josko Gravner traveled to Georgia he was so inspired by what he saw that he began making amber wines in his own country. The technique spread throughout Italy, and when these unique wines first hit the American market, they caused quite a stir. Several wine writers rejected them. Despite the millennia of amber wine tradition in the very birthplace of wine itself, the genre of amber wine was too different to be embraced by many of the wine’s trendsetters.

But the wines kept coming, albeit in small quantities, and after some time, amber wine began to be appreciated on its own merit, in particular for its unique ability to pair with certain foods. Within a few years of its contentious arrival in the United States in the mid-2000s, several domestic producers (notably Matthiasson, Channing Daughters and Scholium Project) began making amber wine.

Virginia entered this global trend as well, and Finot recently released a 2014 skin-fermented Orange Viognier as part of the King Family Vineyards small-batch series. Released only to wine club members, because quantities are low (just 44 cases), he fermented the viognier in open-top fermenters with the skins for about two and a half weeks to get the deep orange hue. “It doesn’t taste like a white wine, but it’s pretty interesting,” says Finot.

The wine is a bold amber color, with rich, intensely layered aromatics. The wine’s aroma truly stands out. “I decided to use viognier because of the aromatic profile,” he says. On the palate, the deep flavors show an in-depth expression of viognier. The tannin structure can rival any medium-bodied red wine and certainly stands up to cuisine like poultry and pork. “Orange wines in general are very interesting for food pairing,” says Finot. “It’s not the fresh and crisp white wine that you want to drink outside when it’s sunny, but on the food scene it’s very interesting.”

Feedback has been positive, and Finot plans to continue making amber wine in small quantities. The King Family release is an important chapter in the larger story of amber wine in the United States, and it has the potential to become a bellwether for Virginia food and wine pairing.

Amber wines are not the strange, rare oddities that much of the wine media makes them out to be, and it’s vitally important that Virginians embrace them. This genre of winemaking could have a major impact on our local culinary scene, because they have the tannic and aromatic structure to match up perfectly with local Virginia products. Pork, in particular, often needs something richer than a white wine, but it can easily be overpowered by a red. Amber wine is the answer.

As local winemakers begin experimenting with skin-fermented white wines, we may have more local amber wines to serve with Virginia ham. Let’s hope so.

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.

–Erin Scala

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Living

Barboursville Vineyards takes home the Monticello Wine Cup and more local restaurant news

Barboursville Vineyards winemaker Luca Paschina says they recently planted three more acres of the Petit Verdot grape, which is mainly used in blends, such as the Octagon. The 2010 Petit Verdot Reserve is the vineyard’s third crafting of wine predominantly with this grape, and is about 90 percent Petit Verdot and 10 percent Virginia Nebbiolo. Photo: Barboursville Vineyards

“We could in the United States make as great a variety of wines as are made in Europe, not exactly of the same kinds, but doubtless as good.”

Thomas Jefferson said it best, and we like to think good ol’ TJ would be proud of the ever-growing Napa-esque wine culture in the Charlottesville area. The Monticello Wine Trail consists of more than two-dozen wineries within the Monticello American Viticultural Area (the first established American Viticultural Area in Virginia), inspired by Jefferson’s winemaking vision. It’s a friendly and collaborative local industry for sure, but there’s always room for some competition, like the Monticello Wine Cup Awards held earlier this month.

“It’s fairly serious in the sense that we, the wineries, have dominated the Governor’s Cup for years, winning somewhere between 45 and 50 percent of the gold medals,” says Glass House Winery owner and Monticello Wine Trail President Jeff Sanders. “Some of the top wines from Virginia are from this area, so this is a competition among wineries here.”

Each of the eight judges—including local sommeliers, wine shop owners and wine writers—sampled half of the roughly 80 wines entered in the contest and ranked them using the UC Davis 20-point wine scoring system, and those that received gold status were then retasted by the entire panel.

Barboursville Vineyards took home the Monticello Cup this year for the 2010 Petit Verdot Reserve, a “distinctly darkly colored and assertively tannic blending varietal of Bordeaux.” With its flavors of licorice and black currant, the Petit Verdot pairs well with red meats with rosemary, thyme and mushrooms. 

“I am particularly grateful that the PV 10 has won this Monticello Cup because I have been patient and diligent in storing 1,000 bottles in aging for the past few years, knowing that a powerful wine like this one needed time before showing elegance and strength at the same time,” says Luca Paschina, Barboursville Vineyards winemaker.

Michael Shaps Wineworks won the award for Top Rated White Wine for the 2015 Viognier, and Sanders says the competition only includes a top-rated category just below the cup award when a truly exemplary wine deserves the recognition.

Twenty-two wines won gold medals, including Afton Mountain Vineyards, Cardinal Point Winery, First Colony Winery, Pollak Vineyards and Trump Winery (making wine great again). Silver medals went to 30 different wines, and 10 wines received bronze awards.

Sustainability across the states

We already know that Virginia can’t get enough of this whole local food thing, which is why Charlottesville-based startup Foodwaze has been so successful, but what about the other 49 states? The Foodwaze app and website connect consumers with places that value and produce food that is sustainable—it allows users to access information about restaurants, farms and shops that the founders have gleaned and verified as sustainable.

The business has attracted some national attention, according to co-founder Michael Reilly, and The Foodwaze Challenge will launch on Sunday, May 1, on Barnraiser.us to determine which states are just as passionate about sustainability and responsible food production as Virginia. For $1, anyone from any state can contribute to the campaign, and for each state that meets its fundraising goal, Foodwaze will “commit personnel to expanding its online and mobile listings there as soon as possible.”

“People all over the country can have their voices heard, and stand up to be counted and let us know they’re interested in our service coming to our area,” Reilly says. “We want to make it fun and energizing and see where the passion is.”

The goal, Reilly says, is to provide information for consumers everywhere, especially in areas that may not already be known for their local and sustainable efforts.

“We want to help connect people to those places that are doing an amazing job that are off the beaten path or in places that you just wouldn’t really know about,” Reilly says.

Nude Fude will host the campaign’s launch party on Saturday, April 30, starting at 4pm.

Butter is better?

Yeah, yeah, breakfast is the most important meal of the day. We all know it, and so many of us skip it anyway. You may have heard about a new trend that knocks out those morning calories for you with something you’re already dependent on: coffee. Health nuts are mixing butter (yes, butter), MCT oil and protein powder into their hot cups of morning coffee as a meal replacement.

“Adding in protein and different healthy fats and oils serves as good energy in the morning, and it’s also going to give you between 300 and 450 calories, so it’s a full breakfast,” says Complete Nutrition Manager Mitchell Parks, who drinks protein coffee regularly. “Plus, it’s frothy and delicious.”

It’s hard to imagine willingly mixing butter into a perfectly good cup of coffee, but Parks says it will keep you full and energized for up to six hours. And allegedly it tastes pretty good. Last Saturday Complete Nutrition held a free protein coffee bar, and the guys behind the counter can get you started if you’re curious about buttering up your morning joe.