Visited a couple VA wineries

First winery visits in a long time. We happened to be in central Virginia and decided to drop in on Horton and Barboursville vineyards.

Horton:
I really wanted to like this place. Dennis Horton single-handedly brought the Norton grape back here from Missouri to start undoing all the damage to our native grape from prohibition. While I’m not a huge fan of Norton wines, I appreciate a native grape and its lineage from Thomas Jefferson’s first experiments in viticulture through what it is today. That said, I really don’t have anything nice to say about our visit to Horton. They do little plastic wine flight shots, which they give to you on a plate and get zero context as to what you are drinking. The white wines weren’t chilled and as such were flabby and lifeless (they might have been good wines if properly chilled). Tasting room was understaffed but not really crowded but still, we were there an hour total to get six small shots of wine. Their Norton might have been better if I could have aerated it a bit (which the shot glasses prevented). I appreciate the staffing/safety situation they must be in, so we were patient, but you are recruiting customers here – show your wines at their best. If I had to find a bright spot it was a dry sparkling viognier that was chilled and had a good flavor profile.

Barboursville:
Complete opposite experience. It looked crowded in the parking lot, but the tasting room had space and it did not feel cramped. They give you a prepaid card and a real wine glass to use at these automated dispensers so you can pick which six wines you wanted. They also had staff wandering around and chatting with folks about the wines, answering questions, and such. Both gentlemen we talked to were very knowledgeable. The counter staff were also very helpful answering questions, price checks, and such. It was relaxed, informative, and while not-traditional, it was what I look for in a tasting experience.

We focused on the Italian varietals (their head winemaker is from Piedmont). The barbera and nebbiolo were great and not expensive. I also enjoyed their sangiovese, although that would have been better with food. Octagon is their flagship wine, a right-bank Bordeaux style and it needed bottle age, but the price was right to take a chance on it for a few years. My wife’s favorite was an appassimento dessert wine reminiscent of a similar one we like from Friuli made in the same manner.

I can definitely recommend visiting here if you are in central Virginia.

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The change in Horton over the years is disheartening. He was one of the early pioneers and the quality back then seemed to me much better than now. Many years ago, my wife and I spent the better part of a day with Dennis tasting his wine and discussing grape growing in the mid-Atlantic region. We were in the planning stages for our home vineyard and Dennis shared a lot of insight from all of the work he had done with different varieties. My wife was in love with Zinfandel at the time and wanted to grow it. She asked Dennis what he thought and got the response “Honey, God himself couldn’t grow Zinfandel here. It looks great one day and is completely rotted the next.”

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There was an interview Luca did 15+ years ago where he discussed how the Barbera and Nebbiolo did well in VA but he was disappointed in the Sangiovese.

I agree it was the simplest of those three. It makes sense, though. Based on a profile I read on him a while back, he thought the hills, sun angle, and soil reminded him of Piedmont (nebbiolo/barbera), and sangiovese is usually grown farther south. That said, the current one seemed very food friendly and was definitely the cheapest of the offerings ($20). We cook a lot of pasta and various red sauce dishes, so it was worth trying a couple bottles.

Agree with the assessment of both Barboursville and Horton. As a Virginian, we are still in the experimental stage and the “wineries” do reflect this early stage of development. There are many (my view Horton is one) which truly are nothing more than “party” or “picnic” destination. Then there are the prestige sites like RDV (very low yields and resulting price), though I have to say I am a huge fan. IMO the ones to watch are starting to really test the boundaries with petit manseng and petit verdot. More established wineries like Linden are producing some very nice Chards. Problem is and always well be the darn humidity of the region. AND, the fact that there is enough money in the region to support a winery making poor juice, but in a beautiful location for a picnic!

Octagon is great for what it is and the PQR isn’t totally obscene. the problem in VA is the price is out of control (part of this is taxes for sure). a lot of these local wineries i’d like to support for just a whatever table wine are $25-35 a bottle. the truly great stuff in VA like RdV is eyepoppingly expensive in a way i can’t really deal with.

post reminds me to hit up Barboursville sometime soon though.

IMO the price is high because places like RDV are growing grapes which in order to achieve their high level of quality need to be so selective that yields become so low (ergo high price). Again, growing cab and merlot in Virginia AND maintaining quality is an expensive venture. It is not taxes.

Never had RdV, but you’re right, that’s approaching Ridge or lower classified BdX prices there! Like to try it though. I still have King Family and Linden on my list to visit (although my local bottle shop has some Linden chard and a petit mansing dessert wine that I’ve tried an liked).

Highly encourage finding a petit manseng that is NOT a dessert wine! A good one will be a real treat!

Which ones would you say are the best in that regard, considering PQR?

Beyond Petit Manseng and Petit Verdot, do you think Nebbiolo is the future around here, as in Barboursville?

at minimum, King Family is one of the best in the area in the gorgeous views/cool place to have a glass or two outside. sometimes they have polo matches!

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I really like what Michael Shaps is doing with Petit Manseng (also Pearmund). There have been some who have tried to make a go with Nebbiolo. Again, IN MY OPINION, while Virginia has the fog like Piedmont, the humidity is killer high… AND given Nebbiolo vines have a history of being very susceptible to viruses I would think it would have a harder time here. I have not had a Virginia Nebbiolo that would make me think differently. Again…early stages in a place that it trying to find its feet.

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More so the land costs; most of the prime grape growing land is also targeted for real estate development, and the cost for startup is much higher because of it, even for those that just look to be growers vs a full on winery. Barboursville and Linden are among the few early wineries that got in before land prices started to soar AND got the right cultivars in place. B’ville also had that Zonin investment money since the start, and are still expanding vineyard plantings on their own property. Good for them, they’re been able to ride those early smart moves through some tough times and still maintain reasonable prices.
If only tobacco fields could be converted to grape vines…

“If only tobacco fields could be converted to grape vines” And Meth Labs to wineries! [truce.gif]

How’s Veritas these days? I remembering liking some whites, even a cabernet franc some years ago and a beautiful setting as well. Let’s not forget weed is legal in VA and I see prime wine growing plots being converted don’t you?

Tricky thing also with PManseng is that it can vary from vintage to vintage in terms of what level of sweetness will show it off best. You can’t make a decision ‘We make a dry PManseng with x%rs and this acidity’ at the start of each vintage and expect that formula to hold. Lots of small parcel assemblages as well, not many plots with 10+acres going at a time. (I am literally listening right now to a viticulturalist and a cider maker discussing PManseng issues and availability in our store about 20 feet from me; the future of the grape may start showing itself in more Pet-Nats and co-fermentations from what they’re saying)A fan of what Early Mountain and Lovingston have done so far with their Mansengs over the last few vintages. On the Nebbiolo front you are hard pressed to find too many people doing much as there just aren’t that many acres out there. One of the grandfathers of Virginia winemaking, Gabrielle Rausse, has a new project he does with his sons called Vino dal Bosco, and I believe they have at least one Nebbiolo (possibly two, can’t recall if it was a separate vineyard I tasted or just a different treatment/fermentation). Lots of wineries had to make rose in 2020 due to the wicked frost damages, so there are a lot of things that may be a ‘wait-and-see’ situation for 2021.

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Would still be land cost issues, as well as those areas being very gentrified, loads of horse farms and old money, probably not looking to have hippies moving in. Land costs in the tobacco road areas like Danville, Martinsville, etc. are extremely depressed and the communities are in dire need of ag money, a thousand times more potential and profit to be had there, and there is still a fair amount of harvest machinery and processing structures in place should the tobacco versions be easily convertible to hemp/pot.

With the caveat that I am a non commercial operation with a small home vineyard in Maryland but the bolded is exactly what I see and what I shifted to a few season back. All of my whites are harvested together for a single blend sparkling. I have also been replanting lost vines in my red blocks with PM which are generally harvested in one or two passes depending on the year and co-fermented. I have been doing more sparking with the reds when conditions suggest it’s better than letting them hang.

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Many years ago, we’d go to Linden and several other area orchards to pick apples every year, and would stop to have a glass of wine on their deck. Nice people, beautiful setting, pleasant enough wine. I am not certain they allow apple-picking any longer (a shame given that they had a number of rare, heirloom varieties), and their restrictions on visiting (esp for “non-members”) are significant. I suspect this was necessary to manage crowds, but they definitely send a “we suffer visitors” vibe rather than a “we welcome visitors” vibe.

Like pounding AR’s into plowshares.