Nice review by IsaacBaker on WineTerroirist of his recent tasting of Virginia wines: Isaac/VAWines
As expected, Viognier (VA’s claim to greatness) led in the whites category. Disappointed in the reds, where are exclusively Cab/Bdx-based wines. Where’s the Teroldego, the Refosco, the Schioppettino, the Nebbiolo?? Wines that could be really exciting. Maybe VA winemakers should get out of their rut. And no Trump wines…this will not play out well in the WhiteHouse. And Isaac really liked two VA dessert wines. I’ve had the Barboursville Paxxito passito wine of an earlier vintage and liked it quite a lot.
Anyway…interesting article.
Tom
The first rule for a business is to make money. Otherwise they go out of business. Besides Barboursville which has no fear of going out of business, I don’t know who is working with Nebbiolo. Way back when Dennis Horton was growing it but ripped it out as it was just too vigorous.
The making money thing is a major problem and you might recall got a lot of folks made with Jim Law of Linden Vineyards. I don’t recall the details now but it had something to do with wineries hosting weddings and Jim spoke out against it. Seems he felt that wineries should be about making good wine. Others felt that this was the only way to make money until such time that they could survive On their wine sales alone.
So you won’t see a lot of experimentation because it doesn’t sell. Lots of vineyards have planted different things to see how it does but eventually it has to sell and that’s hard to do with teroldego especially at the prices that would have to be charged. So it’s going to remain largely Bdx, Chardonnay, and viognier for most wineries. And of course Petit Manseng left semi-sweet.
Perhaps so, Brian. But it doesn’t stop the winemakers up in Colorado.
I have no problem w/ a wnry making Chard/Cab for cash-flow reasons. But if I were a winemaker, I would be interested in the challenge of making
something interesting beyond those two. It would, of course, be nuts for a winemaker to specialize in Teroldego and Schioppettino.
Tom
I thoroughly approve of Petite Manseng and Gros Manseng, David. Has my seal of approval. Two varieties they should be
planting all up&down the coast of Calif…based on what TablasCreek does with it.
Tom
The winery that I believe still works with the most varieties is Horton. The winemaking isn’t what it once was but if you’re I want to see what diversity can look like here is there price list. http://www.hortonwine.com/Horton%20Price%20Sheet%20PDF.pdf
Also I should add that it wasn’t all that easy to get nursery stock for many varieties as recent as 10 years ago. When I started planting my home vineyard in 2006 a number of things that I was interested in were not available and others that were available had minimal clones. When I planted my most recent vines two years ago there was a lot more available. So some decisions were possible driven on availability of material.
Thanks for bringing up Horton, Brian. I always sorta liked how “Horton Norton” tripped off the tongue. I can never think of Dennis Horton w/o thinking
of Dr.Suess’s “Horton Hatches The Egg” book and envisioning Dennis sitting up there hatching Maisey’s egg. One of my most favorite
books from my childhood (which…I should point out…was not all that long ago!!).
He has a very interesting selection of varieties there, but haven’t tried any of his wines in some time.
Tom
Although TCV imported Gros Manseng & released it to FPS, they have not, to my knowledge, made a dry wine from it yet.
Don’t think anybody else has it planted in Calif, to my knowledge.
But their passito PetiteManseng is as good as most any I’ve had from the Jurancon.
And, based on their other passito wines, should age very/very well.
Tom
I think Brian is spot on - do what pays the bills, and once that is ‘fine tuned’ to ensure that it will continue, then perhaps consider ‘experimenting’ a bit.
My guess is that there are lots of folks experimenting on a small scale on a lot of things in VA, but one won’t hear about them because a) most folks won’t get a chance to try them and b) VA is so far away from where most folks concentrate on ‘quality’ wines that they will be written off or simply remain unnoticed.
Could either varieties work out there? Sure - but who has the deep pockets to a) try it and b) keep trying it when folks don’t buy it because ‘it’s not chardonnay, etc’?
And nope, I’m not being cynical - just a realist . . .
Franc is still grown but it’s losing market share to merlot, cab sauv, and petit Verdot. Franc was originally chosen because it was believed the CS wouldn’t ripen and the merlot would have rot problems. Both proved to be less than expected. Petit Verdot is the closest thing to bulletproof for the east coast weather with its small bunches of thick skinned grapes holding up extremely well to the humid and late season rains.
I attended the Eastern States Wine Convention in March and think wineries in Virginia are starting to do very well with cabernet franc - judging by what I tasted in one of the seminars. Location within the vineyards and canopy management are doing very good things to achieve ripeness. I’ll add that NJ is doing pretty well with the grape also, as well as PA and the Finger Lakes on a more hit or miss basis. But with good planning and vineyard management, I think cabernet franc can succeed in the eastern states.
I once had a pinot noir from Afton Mountain Vineyards, west of Charlottesville. I asked how they could grow PN here in the east and the server told me they grow high up the mountains since it’s cooler up there. Probably grape juice trucked in from CA.
Breaux has made Nebbiolo for well over a decade. It’s not compelling, honestly, but worth a try for those interested.
Petite manseng, Norton, Cab franc, Viognier all make decent wines in Virginia. Cab blends do fairly well. The climate here is basically a swamp with a couple of small hills. Hot, less nocturnal/diurnal variation in temp than is comfortable, wet and humid. It’s amazing that anyone bothers making wine here at all, maybe more surprising than champagne from southern New Mexico. But there are great wines being made here. Other than petite manseng based dessert wines, though, all my favorites have been Bordeaux blends.
