Winemakers Ponder: Does an Angel Flailing In the Snow Call Itself a “Snow Me”?

I’m not a big believer in “special occasion wines,” in part because no occasion ever seems right for these “special” bottles, and they may end up aging past their prime as you wait for that “perfect” occasion.  Given that, once we bring a bottle home, it’s pretty much fair game (although some bottles are bought with the specific intention to age them or with a specific food pairing in mind).

That said, sometimes a wine is just a wine.  It might come home with us because we enjoyed it when we tasted it or because we’d heard good things about it, or because we got a good deal on it.  These bottles are the ones that make up the bulk of what we drink.  Not all wine has to be a religious experience.  Sometimes it just needs to be enjoyable.

Two such wines that fall into this category (that I waited far too long to blog about) are the ’07 Cuvee Laurent from Delfosse Vineyards and the ‘09 LoCo Vino from 8 Chains North.

The Cuvee Larent is a chambourcin dominated blend that got a bit lost in the shuffle of the last few years.  We suspected that it wouldn’t really hold up for too much longer, so one evening when we were having a low key night at home playing games, we popped this one open to add to the evening.  It wasn’t a wine that had a lot going on with it, but it was an enjoyable addition to an evening with a great partner.  It had a lot of bright raspberry flavors with a tiny hint of earthiness that would be easy to miss had I not been looking for it.

The LoCo Vino is a traminette/vidal blends that runs a bit sweeter than I normally go for.  Sometimes, that’s just the right kind of wine, however.  When we decided to grill some shrimp with a southwestern rub and pair it with some cornbread pudding and steamed veggies, I thought we’d give this wine a try.  The food pairing was a bit lackluster (too floral for the shrimp – although the sweetness worked well with the cornbread pudding), but the wine was still enjoyable (particularly for my mom who was visiting at the time).  The sweetness/acid balance was working for me in this vintage, and the wine offered plenty of the rose notes that made it clear that this was a traminette.  There were also some enjoyable tropical fruit flavors.  I’m not going to be reaching for this one often, but it definitely has its place in the world.

So, yes, sometimes we take our wine very seriously, plan our wine and food pairings carefully, and analyze what we’re eating and drinking.  Other times we just open a bottle and enjoy it.  Both versions of drinking wine work for me depending on my mood and my company.  What’s your style?

 

Winemaker Shocks World with Revelation: Microclimate Change is Global Warming for Gnomes

During TasteCamp, we got to spend time in 4 different vineyards.  We started Saturday with Doug Fabbioli in his vineyard at Fabbioli Cellars, moved to Tarara Winery where Jordan took us to the Nevaeh Vineyard, spent Saturday afternoon with Ben Renshaw, owner/winemaker at 8 Chains North, at Tranquility Vineyard, and ended the VA wine filled weekend with Jim Law at Linden Vineyards (more on this next week).

Jim Law's Hardscrabble Vineyard

While I took my little vacation from computers, I was struggling with how to talk about this part of TasteCamp.  I totally get that the vineyard is a critical factor in making great wine.  I also recognize that I’m not a plant person and I get bored when talk turns to soils, trellising systems, etc.  Given this, I tried to make Grape Envy Guy write this post since he geeks out on all things botanical, but his life is even more hectic than mine, and it just wasn’t in the cards.  Given this, I figured I had to just bite the bullet and share some general impressions with you.

Doug Fabbioli in his vineyard

First of all, all 4 vineyard visits made clear that these winemakers/vineyard managers are passionate about what they do in the vineyard and understand that it has a direct, and centrally important, relationship to what ends up in the bottle.  If you haven’t done a vineyard walk, watch for the opportunity to do wine at a local winery.  You’re bound to learn something, and it may well change how you think about wine (local or otherwise).

Jordan Harris

Second, despite the VA wine industry maturing, there’s still a lot of experimentation going on.  For example, both Doug Fabbioli and Jim Law talked about experimenting with carmenere, Jordan Harris talked about his lack of satisfaction with his trials of grenache and mouvedre, and everyone talked about trying different clones and rootstocks.

Tarara's Nevaeh Vineyard

Third, site matters.  Grapes will grow on a lot of different sites throughout the state, but they aren’t all ideal.  Also, even within a given vineyard site (e.g., the Hardscrabble Vineyard at Linden), there are microclimate issues that need to be considered, soil variations, etc.  Winegrowers are getting more and more selective about the sites on which they plant their vineyards, the varieties they plant at each site, etc.  That said, economics play a major role in the choices people make, and many are working with less than ideal sites (Fabbioli being one such example).

Tranquility Vineyard

Fourth, there’s a real tension between the desire to make “fine wine,” which often involves incredibly low yields per acre, and the desire to actually be able to make a living from a vineyard/winery.  This also plays a role in bottle price (practices resulting in lower yields may drive a higher bottle price, etc.).  This drives choices about trellising, fruit dropping, etc., and I’m starting to understand how this changes the resulting wine (lower yields may result in more concentrated flavors while higher yields may be related to more overt fruitiness by less depth or development of complex flavors).  Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with any of these choices – it is a business, and people need to make money.  That said, it’s really interesting to learn about factors that play a role in and motivate vineyard management choices.

Doug Fabbioli is growing pears in ship bottles for his pear "port"

Finally, it was again reiterated that the VA wine world is incredibly collaborative.  People share their successes and struggles so that all can improve the quality of the wines being made in the commonwealth.

Jim Law - a teacher, mentor, and advisor to many - still sees himself as a student

Because I’m not sure where else I’ll put these things, let me cram a few more pieces of information in here…

Did you know that Doug Fabbioli grows and sells asparagus?

Doug Fabbioli is one of the founders of the Piedmont Epicurean Arts Center which was founded to help students learn about the epicurean arts from farm to table so that they can establish their own successful agribusiness and play a role in keeping parts of VA (such as Loudoun County) actively agricultural.

Ben Renshaw

Ben Renshaw was a major trooper since he hosted the Tranquility Vineyard walk the day after his wedding!

Otium Cellars

Thanks to Otium Cellars, handily across the street from Tranquility Vineyard, for hosting tasting after our vineyard walk.  GEG and I still intend to return for a more traditional winery visit and tasting in the, hopefully, not too distant future, but it was nice to get a sneak peek at the Otium releases.  My favorite of the ones we tried that day was the ’10 malbec, but I still preferred the two vintages of the Furnace Mountain Red from 8 Chains North that we tasted.

 

Winemaker’s Dog, Mistaken for Horse, Wins Preakness, Plows Three Fields, and (Improbably) Saves Eight Cats From Trees

I feel like every time I turn around there’s a new winery popping up in Loudoun County, but few of those that have opened over the past few years have made a big impression on me.  One that has made an impression is 8 Chains North.  This relatively new winery has struck me as having real potential, and because of that, I always look forward to seeing what their new releases are like.

We recently made a trip to 8 Chains North to check out their current tasting line up and to chat with owner/winemaker Ben Renshaw about what’s coming in the future.

On the day we visited, they were tasting 7 wines.  We began with 3 chilled wines, which were really chilled.  Thankfully the tasting staff was quite patient with us as we cupped our glasses in an attempt to warm the wine to the point where we could actually figure out how we felt about the samples.  The first of the wines was the ’11 sauv blanc ($20).  half was aged in neutral oak while the other half was kept in steel.  I definitely prefer to leave the oak for other grapes, but I’m trying to be more open minded.  I did appreciate the fact that the oak influence was fairly soft for this wine, and I liked the apple notes and bracing acidity.  I’m not sure how often I’d reach for this wine, but I still have a bias to work on.

We then moved on to the ’11 Pink Lady ($18), a merlot rosé.  I was not loving this wine.  The fact that I got a whiff of sulpher on the nose probably didn’t help.  I generally noted some strawberry flavors, but the wine struck me as a bit watery, and I wanted more crispness.  We then moved on the ’10 LoCo Vino ($18), a blend of 54% traminette and 46% vidal blanc.  I got a floral, perfumey nose that immediately let me know I was drinking a traminette based wine.  On the palate, the floral notes were joined by orange and other citrus flavors.  Again, this isn’t a wine I’d be likely to reach for that often, but I can see why it’s a popular choice among visitors.  On a warm afternoon, it may well be my choice when hanging out there as well.

We then moved on to the 4 reds.  The first was the ’09 merlot ($21), 88% merlot and 12% malbec.  This was a very extracted wine with a dark, earthy fruit nose.  There was definitely plenty of oak in this wine, so I’d prefer to revisit it at some point in the future, but there was some nice fruit and smoke behind the overt oak influence.

The tasting ended with a mini vertical of 3 versions of the Furnace Mountain Red.  the first was the ’08 Furnace Mountain Red ($22), a roughly equal blend of cab sauv, petit verdot, and malbec – the last of which was co-fermented with syrah skins.  Given the role of syrah skins in this wine, it should be no surprise that there’s a noticeable Rhone influence on the nose.  This wine has aged well, so I’d encourage those of you who are Furnace Mountain Red fans to try aging some bottles.  We then tasted the ’09 Furnace Mountain Red ($22), a malbec dominant Bordeaux blend.  We recently had this wine with a great meal of deconstructed beef wellington.  This wine generally struck me as fruitier than the ’08.  It offered a lot of plum notes as well as plenty of spice.  We ended with the ’09 Furnace Mountain Red Reserve ($27).  Since this wine spent an additional year in oak after blending, I was unsurprised to notice more oak influence.  It was a smokier nose and I noted black cherry, coco and coffee flavors as well as some earthy notes.  the spice was, however, much softer.

Like many wineries, I wish 8 Chains North was in a position where they could hold back red wines a bit longer as I think Ben’s reds show better after a bit more time in the bottle, but at least I now know to wait a while to drink them and to decant (a major key according to Ben!).

In chatting with Ben, and tasting a few samples, it’s clear that he’s excited about his 2010 reds, and with good reason.  Like his current red releases, they’ll likely benefit from some additional time in the bottle after release, and some decanting, but I’m excited for what’s to come.  Like most VA winemakers, however, Ben’s less excited about his 2011 reds.  Last fall provided roughly 30 days of rain right at harvest, so winemakers were dropping fruit, sorting out lots of less than ideal fruit, and engaging in some interventions in the winery.  Ben was no exception.  With only a few samples to judge from, I’m not making any major predictions, but I’ll definitely be curious to see what happens with final blends.  I think it’s safe to say that these will not be wines that will benefit from a lot of aging, but since most people drink their wines soon after purchase, this isn’t inherently a bad thing.

In the end, my impressions of Ben as a passionate vineyard guy/winemaker were confirmed, and I continue to have high hoped for the development of 8 Chains North in the months and years to come.  Oh, and you may soon notice some changes to the space – they’re renovating/adding on to have a small function space upstairs for when groups visits or businesses want a place for meetings.

 

Food and Wine Pairing Banned By VA Attorney General for Melting Undergarments at 100 Yards

I know it may seem hard for you to believe, but Grape Envy Guy and I actually do have lives, or at least parts of our lives, that are unrelated to wine.  My work life pretty much never overlaps with my wine-related life, but Grape Envy Guy does occasionally have some overlap.  Recently he had one such non-wine centric interaction with Ben Renshaw, owner/winemaker at 8 Chains North Winery & Vineyards.  After they talked about business for a bit, they, not surprisingly, talked about wine.  (Yes, Ben knows who we are since we met at the Tarara Winery Fine Vine viognier event last fall.)

As he left, Grape Envy Guy was given a bottle of 2009 Furnace Mountain Red, a malbec dominant blend of the 5 Bordeaux grapes (cab franc, cab sauv, malbec, merlot, and petit verdot), by Ben as he thought we might like it and wanted to see what we thought.  Life got busy, very very busy, so we haven’t been having our well planned meals that allow for the potential to experiment with wine pairings.  I decided since Ben gave us this bottle, however, that we should make it a priority to plan a meal that might work with it.  One of the best ways for us to slow down and actually spend time together is to plan a grilled dinner and then light a fire outside.  It keeps us away from computers and tv and lets us slow down and enjoy each other.

GEG is a master at picking out recipes, so he hit the cookbooks and tossed some ideas my way, as I seem to be the one who gets the credit/blame for most of our wine pairings.  We thought of lamb as a possibility, but I’m pretty picky about the cuts I’ll eat, and I wasn’t sure what I could get my hands on with time to only stop at one store.  Given that, we decided to look to beef options since I had a better sense of what cuts I could expect to find.  We then quickly settled on a recipe for deconstructed Beef Wellington (thanks again Cook’s Illustrated!).

So, what is deconstructed Beef Wellington?  Well, it’s grill toasted bread topped with some mushroom infused pate, topped with sliced grilled portabello mushrooms, topped with sliced grilled filet mignon.  This, along with some grilled asparagus, was then drizzled with a red wine/port sauce reduction.  This was an amazing recipe, that is actually much easier to prepare than it might seem, and we’re now excited to have such am impressive company-ready recipe to use in the future!

As for the wine, I noted a ton of plum and cherry on the nose which was then joined by some spice on the palate when I first opened it.  On Ben’s advice we decanted this wine for a few hours before dinner.  By then, I was noting blueberry and black raspberry on the nose with dark cherry and blueberry on the palate.  There was also plenty of spice – cardamom, clove, and allspice.  The finish offered a great lingering spicy note that I really enjoyed.

The spice in the wine played nicely with both the earthiness from the pate and the sweetness from the port reduction.  This wine is still a bit young, but it was a winner of a night all around.  Thanks for playing a part in making it happen, Ben.

 

Wine Blogging Wednesday Hosts Singles Event, Awesome Pairings Occur

When Joe Roberts, aka 1 Wine Dude, floated the idea of single vineyard wines for the topic when he hosted Wine Blogging Wednesday #75, we immediately let him know that we were in.  When I first started drinking wine, terrior was something I knew noting about.  It’s still something I’d have a hard time explaining to anyone, but through a lot of tasting throughout Virginia, I’ve come to understand the idea of a sense of place in a bottle that can happen with single vineyard wines.  There are characteristics that can transcend vintage and winemaker variation, and I’m always excited to try one of these wines that is so closely tied to a given place.

One of our biggest problems was selecting a particular wine to open and highlight in this post.  When we started brainstorming about this, Linden, Delaplane, Tarara, Prince Michel, Chester Gap, and Glen Manor immediately came to mind.  There’s also Breaux who, especially for their club releases, does not just vineyard designate wines but parcels within the vineyard.  We were also reminded that Pearmund, Winery at La Grange, and Corcoran have/have made vineyard designate wines.  Others throughout the state would likely qualify if you talk to the wineries/winemakers.

In the end, however, we opted to open a bottle of the Three2One Cellars Tranquility red blend ($45*).  This wine was the result of a collaborative winemaking project undertaken by Jordan Harris (Tarara Winery), Ben Renshaw (8 Chains North), and Clyde Housel (Hiddencroft Vineyards).  Each winemaker buys fruit from the Tranquility vineyard in Purcellville (Loudoun County), VA. They all have different styles to their wines, but they decided to work together on this by each contributing 2 barrels of wine.  The final blend they arrived at was 77% cab sauv and 23% tannat.  Since this was the blend that these winemakers collectively felt best expressed what this vineyard had to offer, I thought it would be a perfect wine to use for this Wine Blogging Wednesday theme.

We were able to try this wine last year when we did a tasting with Jordan at Tarara.  At the, even with decanting, this was a really big wine that seemed like it needed a bit more time.  I figured that, even with the additional time in the bottle, the wine would benefit from decanting.  This was a late night at work for both of us, so we’d planned ahead and had a shredded flank steak and black beans in the slow cooker waiting for us when we got home.  It probably wasn’t an ideal pairing (check out my partner’s comment blow for more information), but you can do worse than a beef dish with a big red wine…

Anyway, to return to the wine, when I first opened it, I noted dark, dried fruit (mostly berries and fig) on the nose, but the wine was quite tight.  The wine definitely opened up with time in the decanter and swirling in the glass, and the fruit elements brightened up and became more prominent.  As the wine continued to open, I also started to attend more to earthy, spicy, and graphite notes.

There was a lot going on with this wine, and I really look forward to revisiting it at some point in the future when we open our other bottle.  If you, like us, managed to hold on to a bottle or two of this wine, know that it is definitely drinkable now.  At the same time, I think that this wine will still benefit from some more growing up time in the bottle.

Also, while there’s definitely an oak backbone to this wine, it wasn’t overwhelming, and there was still plenty of great acid to help provide balance and allow this wine to play well with food.  I’m relatively new to wines from this vineyard, so I don’t yet feel that I’m in a position to talk specifically about the “somewhereness” of this wine, but I’ll definitely be looking for that in the future (the way we recently did with two white wines from Honah Lee Vineyard).  For those of you with more experience drinking Tranquility wines, what do you think speaks to the terrior?

(* We were given this bottle as a sample as part of the launch event for this wine in 2011)

 

Loudoun Vintner Patents Furnace Fed with Grapes, Winter Now 40% More Awesome

Sometimes you find a new winery and think “where have you been all my life,” other times, you think “how fast can I get back to the winery assault vehicle.”  Most of the time, however, I have more mixed reactions.  I may like some of the wines or see potential in a new winery and, therefore, look forward to a future visit to learn more about the winery and my own reactions to it.  One of the wineries that fell into this 3rd category for me was 8 Chains North.  I’d like a wine one time and not the next.  That said, 8 Chains has really grown on me over the past year or so.  That was confirmed recently when we opened a bottle of the ’08 Furnace Mountain Red.

The first time I had this wine was as part of a Loudoun County twitter tasting.  The wine didn’t show particularly well for me that night.  I then had it at the winery and reacted completely differently – the wine had clearly had a lot of time to open up, and it showed some nice complexity and depth of flavors.  A friend bought a bottle and opened it that evening, and even with a few hours open, it just didn’t shine.  Fast forward nearly a year, and we opened our bottle.

Time was clearly a friend to this wine.  The nose offered a ton of dark fruit along with a hint of spice.  On the palate, I more specifically noticed spiced plums, anise, and allspice.  The wine wasn’t incredibly complex and layered (the reserve may have more of this, and we’ll let you know when we open our bottle of that wine), but it was incredibly enjoyable.  The spice on the finish was particularly calling to me.

For now, I’m taking this experience as a sign that I either need to bottle age or decant reds from 8 Chains – something I’ve found with many local reds as financial pressures often mean wineries have to sell a wine a bit earlier than the winemaker would say is ideal.  I’m also taking it as a sign that we need to get back to 8 Chains to get some more wine….now if only Ben, the owner/winemaker, would ditch the synthetic corks…

 

VA Wine Hoarders Stow Away 8 Chains, 9 Routes, and 10 Maids a Milking – Prior to Floor Collapse

It often feels like a new winery pops up somewhere in Virginia every weekend.  Realistically, it doesn’t happen that often, but ti can be hard to keep track of them, let alone get to them all.  We try to spread the love, and snarking, around and visit the occasional new winery, but it often takes a while before a newly started venture is ready for prime time.  One way for a winery to get a bit of a head start is to begin producing wines that can be sampled/sold elsewhere before opening their own tasting room.

This is what Ben Renshaw of 8 Chains North did.  Because of this, when we first visited the 8 Chains tasting room last winter, we were already somewhat familiar with their wines, or at least I was – it’s best not to rely on my partner’s memory (love you, honey!).  Often, we try to give new wineries a year or more between our first and second visits so that things have time to develop and a new collection of wines are available for tasting, but we figured it had been long enough given that 8Chains has really been around for a while, so we pointed to winery assault vehicle towards Route 9 in Loudoun.

When we arrived, we found that we’d get to taste 6 wines, 5 that were currently for sale and one that was a preview of a wine set for release sometime in the near future.  We started with the ’09 sauv blanc ($20) which was aged for 7 months in neutral oak.  I like my sauv blanc naked, but for those who don’t like the bight of a grassy sauv blanc, this one may be worth checking out since the oak softens the wine a bit.  I noted citrus with a hint of something green (but not really grassy which is what I often think of with sauv blanc).

We then moved on to the ’09 LoCo Vino ($18), a 50/50 blend of traminette and vidal blanc with .75% residual sugar.  This wine was not particularly sweet and it offered a great blend of zesty citrus and rose with a hint of spice.  These are all the things I like in a traminette, and I didn’t specifically notice the vidal.  We then got to try the ’10 LoCo Vino which is set to be released in a few weeks once the ’09 is gone.  The ’10 is 56% traminette and only has .5% residual sugar.  This wine struck me as a bit flatter and lacking some of the spice, but I noticed more apple.  I think this is a good example of vintage variation: 2009 and 2010 were very different growing seasons.  I preferred the ’09, but not everyone likes a spicy traminette.

The first of the reds was the ’08 merlot ($20), a blend of 80% merlot, 10% malbec, 5% petit verdot, and 5% cab sauv.  I noted a lot of smokey oak/tobacco on the nose along with some plums and cherry, but the fruit was more prominent on the palate which made the smokey earthy oak worked a bit better.  We then moved on to the ’09 Otium Cellars Dornfelder ($22), a blend of 75% dornfelder, 15% merlot, and 10% malbec.  This wine is a lot softer and less tannic and offers a lot of great fruit flavors (mostly berry) along with a hint of black pepper and oak.

The tasting ended with the ’08 Furnace Mountain Red ($22), a blend of 34% malbec, 30% cab sauv, 29% petit verdot, 5$ cab franc, 2% merlot.  The months since we first tasted this wine have done good things for it.  It was spicy, rich, and earthy with a fair bit of fruit blended in (along with a touch of something that made me think of soil).  FYI, for you Furnace Mountain fans out there, they plan to release the ’09 reserve in time for Thanksgiving.

I’m not in love with every wine I tried – in general I like a bit less oak than I found in the sauv blanc and the merlot – but I also found wines I enjoyed and wanted to take home with me.  I also found myself enjoying the small conversation groupings in the tasting room as well as the patio space (that we understandably didn’t attend to in December).  I can see why so many people seem to like hanging out here.  It’s a welcoming space with a welcoming staff.  I look forward to watching 8 Chains continue to develop over the coming years.

 

Get To Know Your Winemaker: Ben Renshaw of 8 Chains North

So by now, you may have made the trek out to 8 Chains North, the winery that is 8 chains north of whatever is 8 chains south of where they are. Or something. As we all know, wines don’t make themselves, they’re made by winemakers (because oompa-loompas make candy, not wine. But even they would be horrified by Choco-vin). Who makes wine for 8 Chains North? Ben Renshaw, who graciously agreed to answer our deeply probing and profound queries!

Where did you grow up?
Air Force brat, born in Nebraska, lived in Alabama, both Dakotas, Germany, England & stationed in Va 3 times.

How long have you lived in VA?
I consider myself a Virginian, have been here permanently since 1983.

What brought you to wine?
Bartended my way through college at VCU in Richmond.  Had a GREAT distributor who would make staff come in an hour early every month and he would bring 3-4 wines, paired with something on our menu…this is where I was introduced to my favorites (still) Kissler Chard, Pride Mountain Cab, Merlot, Cab Franc, Ridge Zin, Duckhorn Merlot, etc.

Where else (besides your current winery) have you made wine?
I was the winemaker at Sunset Hills for 3 years.  Am currently making for Otium Cellars (they are not open yet and I am making and selling their wines through 8 Chains North) and another that is not yet open, but will be later this year Creek’s Edge Winery

What characteristics do you enjoy in wine?
I like big, deep and rich.  For fruit that we can grow in Virginia I love Tarara’s Syrah, Glenn Manor’s Sauvignon Blanc, Northgate’s Petit Verdot.  These wines accentuate the most positive aspects that we can produce in Virginia.  I wish we could grow Zinfandel and Petit Syrah here.

If you could have a private tour of any winery in the world, which would you choose?
I wish my palate and knowledge was greater than it is, but my favorite winery Pride Mountain in Napa/Sonoma…I’ve been there for a tasting, but not a private one.  Can you imagine getting into some of those barrels???!!!!!!

What is your favorite food and wine pairing?
I drink more red than white, so I really like a good Malbec with grilled Portabello Mushrooms.  However, I have to admit that there is something magical about a good, acidic Sauvignon Blanc (Stolpman or Glen Manor) with shellfish like crab or little neck clams on a hot summer night!

What are your favorite wine varietals?
Over the years I have bounced around…Pinot Noir, Zinfandel were big for me a few years ago, but I am currently really into Malbec and Syrah.  However, if I had to pick one it would be Cabernet Sauvignon…the king of wines and the wine of kings!

A lot of wine folks are excited for the 2010 wines. Which of your wines are you the most excited about?
The Malbec and Petit Verdot will knock your dick in the dirt!  I’m going to do varietals out of both of them.

Who is your favorite cartoon character?
Well I’m sure you were expecting Bart Simpson, or Stewie, but I’m gonna go ooooold school on you and say Underdog!

What is one thing we haven’t asked that you want Virginia wine lovers to know about you or your winery?
I am at the core a vineyard guy, managing about 75 acres in Loudoun. To that end I am very hands off and old world style in the cellar. My wines are a true reflection of what the vintage was…this is great in years like 2007 and 2010, and more challenging in years like 2008 & 2009.  Rich Evans from Flying Fox outside Charlottesville gave me a bottle of his Merlot a couple years ago and said something to the effect of “this is a bottle of what our vineyard produced last year”…real simple, but very telling of his style and approach.  I  work very hard in the vineyards and think this makes the critical difference in the cellar in both good years and not so good years.

Have you made a wine since you’ve been in VA that you think speaks to who you are as a winemaker? If so, what is it and why that one?
Like I said earlier, I am a vineyard guy and fairly “hands off” in the cellar (I dont like to fine or filter my reds, or make additions that are not absolutely necessary). So I would have to say the 2008 Furnace Mountain Red.  Its a Bordeaux style blend of all 5 reds from Bordeaux.  By taking the natural: structural characteristics from the Cab Sauv, the fruit characteristics from Malbec, Cab Franc and Petit Verdot and gripping tannins and acids from the Merlot, the blend of the grapes accentuates the natural strengths from each varietal…which are all generated in the vineyard.

 

A Winery Review AND a Trivia Challenge!

We’ve had a few bottles of wine from 8 Chains North in the past – first at Fabbioli Cellars, and then as part of a Twitter tasting – but a few weeks ago was our first stop at their tasting room along Route 9. I would describe the space as… eclectic. I kind of liked it. There’s a big comfy couch, lots of tables, and a wide range of furniture styles. There are also several antique appliances. Very Loudoun County of them, old stuff that probably costs more than my truck.

Our tasting began with the ’09 Otium Cellars Pinot Gris/Grau Bergunder ($18). Otium is a winery that currently doesn’t have a tasting room (coming soon!). The wine was a little oaky on the nose but still had some nice crisp fruit. The 8 Chains ’09 Sauvignon Blanc ($20) is done in a Fume Blanc style, and shows that I actually can like a Fume Blanc style sauv blanc. While the oak is present, it takes a back seat to the fruit, especially the citrus zest on the finish. I rather enjoyed it. We finished the white with the LoCo Vino ($18), a 50/50 blend of Traminette and Vidal Blanc with 1.5% residual sugar. Floral and spicy with soft citrus fruit, this was a clean and lightly sweet, enjoyable wine.

The ’09 Otium Cellars Blau Frankisch ($22) started the reds. It’s a new grape for us (known in Germany as Lemberger), with a nice fruitiness and balance. The ’08 Merlot ($20) was a little on the light side for me, but still had some great dark fruit flavors and well balanced oak. The ’08 Furnace Mountain Red ($22) is the one we tried as part of the Twitter tasting, and my impressions couldn’t have been more different. While we didn’t like it then, this time it had clearly had a lot of time to open up and was showing fruit, earthiness, and holy Juan Valdez the coffee! I was a fan after this tasting. The last wine was the ’08 Furnace Mountain Red Reserve ($26). This had less of the coffee and more fruit and all around earthiness. It’s a big, sexy, dark, red. Good stuff.

This trip was a double win. We got to learn about Otium Cellars, a new winery that will be offering unusual German style wines. And, we got to taste a number of enjoyable wines and give the Furnace Mountain Red another shot. We’re already looking forward to a repeat visit.

And you may be wondering, what is the meaning of the name 8 Chains North? Let’s see if you can figure it out – here are four possibilities, leave your answer in the comments:

a) 8 chains refers to a surveying measurement

b) 8 chains refers to the anchor chains on barges on the Potomac

c) 8 chains refers to gold chains on Mr. T

d) 8 chains refers to the logging camp that used to be at the site of the vineyard.

Don’t pull a Cliff Clavin!

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What We Discovered

Last night we took part in a twitter tasting to help people “Discover DC’s Wine Country” – otherwise known as Loudoun County.  We’ve been talking about this for a few weeks, and in my opinion, it was quite a successful event.  It was all I could do to try to keep up with the tweeting as I did my part as one of the “hosts” to try to keep tasters from around the country moving through the wines in the same order and on schedule.  The tweets were flying.  These included both positive and negative impressions of wines – after all, palates differ – and lots of questions to the winery representatives who joined the discussion.

The wines we tasted were the 2009 Nevaeh White from Tarara Winery ($30 – not yet released), the 2009 Ottantotto Viognier from Notaviva Vineyards ($20), the 2008 Furnace Mountain Red from 8 Chains North ($22), the 2007 Cabernet Franc Reserve from Breaux Vineyards ($30/$40 – not yet released), and the 2008 Petit Verdot from North Gate Vineyard ($24).  Since 2 of these wines are not yet released and 2 are from wineries we’ve yet to visit, we were discovering the wines of Loudoun County right along with the out of state tasters.

The Nevaeh White was up first.  Jordan Harris, the winemaker at Tarara, is moving towards single vineyard blends to better focus on terrior as opposed to a particular varietal.  (They’re also using screw caps for all their wines – but that’s a discussion for another day.)  The ’09 is 70% viognier and 30% chardonnay, and it was definitely my favorite of the two whites.  It had a great viognier nose with a lot of floral and tropical notes.  On the palate, I got pineapple, orange, and some stone fruit flavors along with some soft oak notes.  There was also some really interesting spice to the finish 9maybe cinnamon?) that i wasn’t expecting to find from these grapes.  I definitely prefer stainless viognier to oaked, but the oak here was light enough that I wasn’t really bothered by it (Jordan used 30% new oak).  General consensus was that the chard added some weight to the blend, but I definitely found the viognier to be dominant.  I also know that we need to get back to Tarara to try more of Jordan’s wines.  I just wish they were priced a little lower so that could be wines we’d enjoy more often.  Food pairing suggestions were flying for this wine, but the winner seemed to be chicken with apricot chutney from the Swirl Girls.

We then moved on the Ottantotto Viognier (with 1% chard).  I wasn’t a huge fan of this wine when we visited Notaviva, and I’m still not.  It’s fine – don’t get me wrong – but it wasn’t what I look for from viognier.  Again, oak made an appearance…  On the nose, I got light vanilla, orange blossom, and a tiny hint of tropical fruit.  I like a bit more fruit, but at least the oak wasn’t deadening everything.  The oak did hit me right up front on the palate with some floral vanilla and a bit of generic tropical fruit behind that.  As it warmed up, the pineapple and citrus got more prominent, but it also get a bit harsher on the finish.

The reds began with the Furnace Mountain Red blend.  Prior to last night, we’d tried one 8 Chains North wine when we tasted at Fabbioli Cellars, but this was a new wine to us.  It’s a blend of Malbec (33%), Cab Sauv (30%), Petit Verdot (30%), Cab Franc (5%), and Merlot (2%).  This wine was not for me.  The nose was very dark and earthy, but in a way that was not working for me.  I was getting some decaying leaf funk.  The fruit did come out on the palate, however.  I was getting dark fruit, oak, and a bit of herbal once I swirled the heck out of the wine to open it up.  Some people seemed to really like it, but I didn’t find it well balanced.  It’s a fine wine but nothing special.  It might benefit from more time in the bottle, but since it’s closed with a synthetic cork, you can’t trust it to last for more than a few years.

The Breaux Cab Franc was one I was particularly interested to try.  The label lists the ABV (alcohol by volume) as a whopping 16.4%.  I actually got a sneak peak of this from the barrel when I was at Breaux the day before the Drink Local Wine conference.  Since then, they’ve decided to bottle it as a reserve for their wine club, and they plan to release it in another year or so.  This was one crazy dark wine, and I think almost any one would be hard pressed to peg this as a cab franc.  When i first popped the wine open, there was a hint of dark fruit, but it was really tight.  Rather than just leaving the bottle open, I decided to decant some of it, and it really made a difference.  After a few hours in the decanter, the nose was a ton of rich chocolate along with some dried fruit.  On the palate, I got oak, cherry, and prunes.  The wine wasn’t as hot as I feared it would be, but it was still hotter than I prefer, and the oak and the heat just became more prominent as I continued to sip.  If I can ever get my hands on a second bottle of this wine, I’d love to cellar it and see what it’s like in another 5-10 years.  It really needs some time…

The last wine of the evening was the North Gate Petit Verdot (with 10% cab sauv).  They’re not yet open to the public, so we’ve never had the opportunity to try their wines.  I’m now excited to plan a visit when their new tasting room opens in 2012.  This was my favorite of the evening.  When I first opened it, I noted some dark fruit and earth, but it was also really tight, so out come a second decanter.  I got some earthy notes (maybe tobacco?), raspberry and violet wit  this wine.  The fruit was quite bright and there was some really nice acid that just made me long for a great meal to go with this wine.  My only complaint was that the finish was too short.  That wouldn’t stop me from buying another bottle if I could find one, however.

From my perspective, a fun time was had by all.  The only real downside for me was that the tastelive site was really clunky to use.  That meant we had 3 computers going.  I had the tastelive site up on the desktop, and I mostly tweeted from that platform.  I also had my laptop open next to the monitor so that I could follow the tweet stream using tweetdeck.  Grape Envy Guy was also using our netbook to follow along.

I need to end by giving a shout out to my fellow hosts, Frank from Drink What You Like & Paul and Warren from Virginia Wine Time.  I had a great time working with you guys on the behind the scenes stuff.  Thanks for being such amazing collabroators.

So, were any of you twitter lurking last night?  Does this make you want to Discover the wines of Loudoun County?  Do you have any brilliant ideas for future twitter tasting?  (The Virgina Wine Board may try to organize some more…)

(FYI, all these wines were received as samples from the wineries.)