From Grapes and Grain to Glass

Virginia Wine: Fueled by Collaboration

A collegial atmosphere has helped buoy the Virginia wine industry since the days when Jefferson made two unsuccessful attempts to cultivate wine grapes at Monticello, outside Charlottesville. (The first attempt was cut short by the Revolutionary War; the second is generally attributed to a pest that was deadly to the European vitis vinifera grapes he planted.) “The Virginia wine industry is truly one of the most inclusive you’ll ever see. The concept of competition is absurd,” said George Hodson, CEO at Veritas Vineyards & Winery, located near the northern entrance to the Blue Ridge Parkway in Afton.

That atmosphere has enabled the wine industry to grow quickly, with the number of wineries in the Commonwealth nearly tripling since 2005. Hodson’s new sparkling winemaking equipment at Veritas should be ready to bubble up other wineries’ product on contract in time for the 2020 harvest. Another Charlottesville-area winemaker, Michael Shaps — who has expanded his Michael Shaps Wineworks production facilities four times in 12 years — is bringing another building online to make more wine for his neighboring vintners. Currently, he has 15 contracted clients.

“It helps the growth of the industry,” Shaps said. “This allows people to develop vineyards without the millions of dollars they need to build a winery.”

Winemakers tend to support the use of land for growing grapes, not only as a way to bring jobs and economic opportunity to rural areas and bring younger generations back to their family farms, but as a way to preserve it from encroachment by developers and generate more tax revenue than they would by putting it out to pasture.

Christopher and Kiernan (Slater) Patusky brought their kids back to Kiernan’s 300-year-old family cattle and feed farm in Fauquier County in Northern Virginia to plant grapes and produce wine under the Slater Run label. Almost entirely run by the Patuskys and Kiernan’s relatives, six-year-old Slater Run will boast two production buildings and a new tasting facility later this year.

“It’s just a really, really important industry for these rural areas,” said Patusky, whose children constitute the family farm’s 11th generation. “These older farms are no longer as viable as they were, so agritourism is a great way to keep the agricultural lifestyle alive, active, and economically viable.”

“The idea of agriculture and good animal husbandry is that you bring that economic activity into a community,” said Jennifer McCloud, an entrepreneur who’s recently opened a culinary center called The Ag District to make and sell estate bread and cheese on her cattle farm and vineyard, Chrysalis Vineyards, in Middleburg in Northern Virginia.

McCloud primarily focuses on reviving the state’s nearly defunct native Norton grape, the world’s most disease-resistant varietal and once revered for its ability to make what judges at an 1873 competition in Vienna called “the best red wine of all nations.” In addition, McCloud says she’s the primary source of Alvariño grapes in America.

Generally, Viognier, Petit Verdot, Cabernet Franc, and Tannat grapes also grow well, and at Veritas, Hodson is in the process of branding a line of some of these otherwise underrepresented wines under the name True Heritage to sell exclusively for distribution as a way to expand recognition of Virginia wines outside their tasting rooms, where 90% of the state’s bottles are sold. According to the Virginia Wine Board Marketing Office, Virginia’s microclimates resemble the conditions of European grape-growing regions in Southern France, Southern Italy, and parts of Spain.

But more often, Virginia’s vintners prefer to emphasize their own terroir — in whatever form that may take.

Chatham Vineyards on Church Creek sits on sandy, loamy soil that imparts “terrific” acidity and minerality to its “runaway” Church Creek Chardonnay, says co-owner Mills Wehner. Located in Machipongo in Northampton County, it also enjoys a rare proximity to the ocean.

“We’re deeply committed to the Eastern Shore of Virginia,” she said. “We sell the shore first, wine second.”

Virginia Craft Spirits: Local Focus Leads to Better Products

Like Chatham Vineyards, Virginia distilleries have a strong focus on locally sourced grains. According to a 2018 analysis prepared for the Virginia Distillers Association, Virginia’s craft distilleries source more than 70% of their agricultural ingredients in-state. “We get all of our corn and barley from Virginia,” said Tom Murray, whose MurLarkey Distilled Spirits in Prince William County has won 23 prestigious regional, national, and international awards and recognitions since opening in 2015.

In Charlottesville, Vitae Spirits Distillery varnishes its local credentials by emphasizing what co-owner Ian Glomski calls “community terroir.” As a gluten-free distillery that chiefly makes rum instead of grain spirits, it can’t source enough raw materials in Virginia to fulfill any traditional sense of terroir. Instead, he partners with a coffee roaster to make cold-brew coffee liqueur and a neighboring barbecue restaurant to grill the Louisiana sugarcane he uses to distill rum.

“There’s an influence of geography and geology, but it’s also the terroir of the community [in our rum],” said Glomski, a former professor of microbiology at the University of Virginia School of Medicine.