Winemakers Face Off in the Squared Circle, Everyone Wins

I’m sure there are lots of super creative ways that I could approach writing posts to share my TasteCamp experiences with you, but I have to admit that I’m having trouble coming up with any of them.  Given that, I’ll leave that to other bloggers and will just take a fairly linear approach.  I’m also not going to try to share every wine tasted and every detail shared.  Instead, I’ve decided to focus on who the VA wine participants were and what stood out to me.  Please know that if I don’t explicitly talk about a wine it doesn’t mean it wasn’t good.  It may be a wine I didn’t get around to tasting, or it may have been a wine that just got lost in the shuffle.  I tried to swirl, sip, spit, and note-take (sorry, I just couldn’t make the alliteration work) throughout the weekend, but there was a lot going on.

Anyway, TasteCamp started off at Boxwood Winery, and the did a wonderful job of welcoming everyone. In fact, it turns out they do things even more seamlessly than I thought since they had to change everything at the very last moment due to a lack of cooperation from mother nature.  Anyway, we were all greeted by Rachel Martin, executive VP, and Adam McTaggart, winemaker, along with a glass of the ’11 rosé.  As I’ve come to expect from Boxwood rosés, it was light, crisp, and refreshing, and I found it enjoyable to sip as I mingled with other attendees as they arrived in advance of lunch.

Over a wonderful lunch catered by Ayrshire Farm, I got to know some of my fellow attendees, and we all learned the big news about Boxwood starting to be open to the public.  Boxwood pulled out the big guns from the library for wines with lunch – they poured both the ’07 Topiary and the ’07 Boxwood.  Both of these wines have integrated well in the years since I first tasted them, and they’r both drinking really well right now if you happen to have any you’ve been hiding from yourself.  I’d say that the Boxwood could still handle another couple of years, but the Topiary is a wine I’m planning to drink within the next year or so.  The 2010s we had at the grand tasting after lunch weren’t doing it for me, however, so I’m glad I’ve got some of their previous vintages to tide me over for a while.

After lunch and a tour of the barrel cave, something we had to miss on our tour of the winery since our visit coincided with the arrival of a hurricane and the winery having to run on generator power (thereby blocking the entrance to the cave), we headed out to the crush pad for the Friday grand tasting.  In addition to Boxwood, the wineries pouring a few of their wines were Ankida Ridge Vineyards, Annefield Vineyards, Barboursville Vineyards, Blenheim Vineyards, Gadino Cellars, Glass House Winery, Hume Vineyards, Pearmund Cellars/Vint Hill Craft Winery, Rappahannock Cellars, Veritas Vineyards, and White Hall Vineyards.  All the winery representatives did a great job of sharing their wines, the stories behind their wineries, and the passion that fuels the VA wine industry.

Hume brought 3 new to us releases, so it was nice to get a sneak peak of them, I particularly enjoyed their new viognier, but we were told that there’d be 1 or 2 more new releases in the coming weeks, so we think we’ll hold off on a visit until then.  I also liked the viognier brought by White Hall (all stainless for those of you who don’t like oak in your viggy) and appreciated the sneak peek at their soon to be released ’10 petit verdot.  My visit to the Annefield station reminded me that we need to get back to southern VA, and since they might be having a non-harvest party since they lost their crop to frost damage, that seems like a perfect time for our visit.  The Blenheim rosé also grabbed my attention, the warm afternoon made it seem particularly refreshing, but I also noticed Kirsty Harmon’s “screwcap” ring – I so want one,and I bet Jordan Harris is jealous!

Barboursville deserves some credit for bringing an ’02 viognier and an ’05 cab franc from their library so that we could see how VA wines are ageing.  The viognier was particularly interesting.  It had darkened in color and become slightly nutty.  Since this was a viggy that saw no oak, I thought it was interesting that they’re exploring how it ages.  Kudos for the experimentation – it also showed me that I do tend to like my reds earthier and aged rather than young and fruity.  I generally enjoyed the offerings from Veritas (’11 sauv blanc, ’11 viognier, ’10 vintner’s reserve, ’10 petit verdot) and learned that they’re doing a lot of planting.  Clearly we need to find a time to catch up with Emily, their winemaker, and learn more about what they have going on.  Finally, the Ankida pinot noir continues to integrate and change as it spends more time in the bottle.  I’m still not quite ready to open the bottles I’ve got on my rack, but I encourage you to check it out if you can find a bottle.

In closing (we’ll have more next week, however), I just want to say that I was amazed at how many owners/winemakers greeted us by commenting on how much they love our post titles.  Kudos to Grape Envy Guy on that one as it’s 100% him.  Of all the ways to make an impact in this world, apparently ours is destined to be titles that break every rule of SEO optimized titles to help blog traffic – I can live with that.

 

 

Gallons of VA Wine Industry’s Finest Smuggled Out in Bloggers’ Bellies, All Strangely OK With That

This is weird to say, but after this weekend, I may need a vacation from wine. While I may take some time off from drinking it, I’m still going to write about it.  In fact, over the next two weeks or so, we’ll talk in more detail about the specific events and experiences that made up Taste Camp 2012, in addition to some posts as part of our regularly scheduled program, but I wanted to take this opportunity to get out some of my initial impressions and reactions.

First, I want to thanks the Taste Camp organizing group for their work, and I especially want to thank all the VA wineries and wine folks who poured, hosted, and generally shared their passion with us this weekend.  While I consider myself fairly knowledgeable about the VA wine industry, there is always more to learn, and I definitely found this weekend to be a learning experience.  As a strong believer in embracing life long learning, I feel incredibly privileged to participate in this kind of focused experience.  Next year, Taste Camp, which has previously been to Long Island, the Finger Lakes, and the Niagara region of both NY and Canada, will be going to Quebec next year.  Since dates have yet to be announced, I don’t know if I’ll be able to attend, but, if I can make the travel work with my day job, I’ll be crossing the border to learn about a wine region completely new to me.

Rachel Martin, Executive VP of Boxwood Winery

Second, I want to thank Rachel Martin and Boxwood Winery for giving all the Taste Camp attendees the right to break the news that they will be opening the winery to the public.  Up to now, one could only visit the winery by appointment at a cost of $25 per person.  Now, they will have open hours on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday from 11am-6pm (from June 8th through September 15th – the hours will adjust seasonally).  They are, essentially, relocating their downtown Middleburg tasting room into the winery itself.  FYI, groups of 6 or more are still asked to reserve space in advance, and no buses will be allowed.

Vicki and Mark Fedor, gracious hosts extraordinaire

Third, I want to thank Mark and Vicki Fedor, from North Gate Vineyard, for hosting the Saturday night BYO dinner.  We all got to taste the North Gate wines – I was particularly intrigued by their new roussanne and the petit verdot, and then we started opening tons and tons of bottles while eating some BBQ.  We brought a 2011 Glen Manor petit manseng, a 2010 Keswick viognier, a 2006 Lovingston reserve merlot, and a 2008 Jefferson merlot, which were all well received.  We also brought a 2008 Chester Gap merlot, but it was consumed at a Friday night “after” party…  Honestly, I didn’t even try to keep track of the wines I tasted – there were far to many, and I was a bit burned out on approaching wine as an intellectual and decided to adopt a more hedonistic perspective for the night, but I want to thank all the attendees for raiding their cellars to make it such a great time.  One “wine,” really did stand out to me, however.  It was the Antolino Brongo Cryomalus, an ice cider.  I grew up in New England, and this cider is made from many of the great eating apples I grew up with, so it smelled like fall at home to me.  More than that, it just tasted amazing.  I need to find out how I can get my hands on this stuff!  Thanks to Julien Marchand for bringing it with you – this bottle alone made me think that I need to try to find a way to make a trip to Quebec happen.

forgive the bad photo - I was using my phone

Fourth, I want to let you all know that the general buzz I heard about VA wine throughout the weekend was very positive.  If you can’t tell from the local wine focus of this blog, I am passionate about VA wine, and I think the state has a lot of great offerings.  That’s why I choose to advocate for them.  At the same time, not all offerings are equal, and even a particular high quality wine won’t appeal to everyone.  That said, I think everyone found something that stood out to them this weekend, and many were incredibly positive about the quality of the wines and the direction of the industry.  I think the major take away for everyone, however, was how passionate everyone is.  It didn’t matter if we were talking abut vineyard practices, cellar techniques, or business decisions, the passion of all those involved in the VA wine industry was made incredibly clear.  The VA wine world is a great community, and I’m thrilled that, in a small way, I’m allowed to be part of it from time to time.  I’m also glad that those from other states (and countries) could get a sense of this for themselves.  Most people involved in VA wine aren’t hobbyists or those looking for a side project that can afford to lose money; instead, they’re people who are working very hard to make a living in agriculture and have chosen to follow their passions.  As someone who is in a low paying profession about which I am passionate, I applaud anyone who makes this decision – and I will continue to enjoying drinking the fruits of their labors.