Saturday, February 1, 2014

Downstate Weekend -- the Ride Down

Half the fun of a trip is the journey, and that's especially true when you're stopping at wineries along the way, right? After a burger in old town Warrenton at the Iron Bridge Wine Company, we started southwest and hit three wineries on our way to Nelson County:


Early Mountain Vineyards

I've been wanting to visit the former Sweely Estate winery ever since Steve and Jean Case bought it with the aim of using it to elevate Virginia wine and promote the industry.

The Vibe:  Opulent -- it's beautifully designed on the inside with spectacular open spaces, a curvy bar and a scale that's (dare I say it?) Napa-worthy. On the outside it looks a little McMansion-y, but it more than makes up for it on the inside. It very definitely has that wine-tourism vibe, serving as a homage to all things Virginia, with several different Virginia wines available (more on that in a minute), books about Virginia and its wine (including the obligatory Thomas Jefferson materials), Olli Salume, Everona Cheese and various other local products.

The Wine:  The tasting setup is unique -- here you buy a flight of wine and get a rack of four two-once pours all at once, rather than being walked through a list. They had four flights available, including one that's all Early Mountain, a "Best of Virginia" flight, an all Virginia whites flight and a Cabernet Franc vertical. We decided to taste the in-house product. It featured a red Bordeaux blend that was tannic, but had a decidedly old world feel; a rose made up of Malbec and Merlot that had nice body and depth; a dry, crisp Pinot Gris; and an off dry Petit Mensang and Muscat blend that had a Sauturnes nose, but a much crisper taste.

The Takeaway:  Early Mountain is a spectacular place that does indeed promote the Virginia wine industry while also creating some solid wines. Of what we tasted today, we ended up taking home the rose and the Pinot Gris, though I've had a Viognier and Cab Franc from there previously. Some of the other featured wineries Included Knight's Gambit, King Family, Chatham, Gabrielle Rausse and Breaux, as well as Potter's Cider (which Patti really loves). It's a beautiful facility and while it was hard to judge the crowd since we were visiting early on a Friday afternoon, I'm sure we'll come again at some point -- we definitely support their mission.
 

Mountfair Vineyards

We've been members at Mountfair ever since they opened their power-less tasting room for us after the derecho in 2012. Today, we had about two cases of wine to pick up.

The Vibe:  Couldn't be more opposite of Early Mountain -- it's backwoodsy and casual, a relatively small operation inside a cement floored barn where the tasting bar is essentially a bar top spanning about four barrels. Actually, it's casualness is one of the things we like about the place -- it's about as unpretentious as it can be and the people are always friendly and chatty.

The Wine:  They specialize in Bordeaux blends. They usually taste some other things like whites, ciders or bubbly from other producers, but they strictly focus on producing highly extracted reds with various combinations of the Bordeaux varieties. They started with a couple of Potter's ciders and a rose from Knight's Gambit, but then they moved to four Bordeaux blends of varying composition: Intertwined, an elegant, delicate Cabernet Sauvignon dominated blend; Amore, a Merlot-driven blend that had a little more tannin; Twang, a Cab Franc-based blend that was highly extracted, but soft; and Irreverent, another Merlot-based blend. They're big fans of oddball names at Mountfair, though they're very meticulous about outlining the varietal percentages on the back label. All of them were good, and we were happy with our two cases.

The Takeaway:  We've always enjoyed the friendly people and casual vibe of Mountfair, as well as the spectacular backwoods scenery. And the wines can be sublime -- they're very extracted, as I said, and sticking to one thing (Bordeaux blends) allows them to really play with all of the variations in that format rather than spreading yourself too thin. They also charge the same price for all their wines -- a unique pricing structure that allows you to swap around your club shipments easily.  Our only complaint is that sometimes their wines can be vegetal in taste, which can be quite off-putting. None of the ones we had today were, but we've had some in the past. Part of me wonders if maybe we should let them age longer before drinking, or be more fastidious about decanting them. They do seem to smooth out with longer opening time.


A study in contrasts:  Early Mountain's palatial interior with Mountfair's much more rustic setup


Grace Estate Winery

This was really just a drive-by, since we arrived about 4:50 and they close at 5:00. But I've followed Jake Busching from when I saw him in "Vintage" as the winemaker at Pollack, and was curious to see his new gig.

The Vibe: HUGE -- the property goes on forever! I felt like I drove half an hour after we came through the gate and went up some steep hills. It's part of Mt. Juliet Farm, which has been growing vines for 20+ years, though the actual winery is a fairly new thing. Some of the vines we passed on the way in were old and gnarly, which is always cool to see, especially in Virginia where the industry is so new that they're usually pretty dainty. The facility, once we got to it, was pretty big and felt like a very large suburban home. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

The Wine:  We very quickly breezed our way through a five wine tasting list that included a Viognier that was a good example of the variety, with a floral nose and smooth palate; a Chardonnay that had just the right amount of oak, without being buttery and cloying; an off-dry called Le Gras Cuve; a red blend, Le Gras Baril, that was light and refreshing for a Bordeaux blend, and showed that while 2011 was a wet, difficult year around here, you could get some interesting wine, as long as you weren't expecting the usual; and finally, a very tasty Cabernet Franc that had the black pepper taste I like in a Cab Franc.

The Takeaway:  We really didn't get the full experience here -- we rushed through at 5:00 on a Friday and really I'd just call it a sneak peak. We walked with the Chardonnay and Cabernet Franc, and I'd definitely like to come back, maybe when we camp here this summer, and get a fuller picture of the place.



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