Vintner’s Blog Archive

Update 4/9/09: Event is full, but I will take reservations for the wait list. Be on the lookout for the next month’s announcement. The May production tasting theme is Meritage / Bordeaux reds.

Our next Production Tasting will occur on April 25, at 3:30 pm at the winery. This time we are looking at Chardonnay. This variety has not received much attention lately, but it is the most popular wine in the U.S. and is the most planted grape variety in California. It’s also the number one white wine variety in Virginia, far out-selling Viognier. We will taste ten wines, some of which are considered the best examples of Chardonnay in the world.

Continue reading Chardonnay Production Tasting April 25

We had a very successful tasting this past Saturday at the winery. I think we all expanded our ideas of what Cabernet Franc can taste like. The French Loire Cab Francs exhibited typical austere and extracted (and somewhat vegetal) character. The California examples had characteristic ripe and tannic dispositions, though with less “Cab Franc” character. Surprises included the 100% Cab Franc example from Tusacany, from the Super Tuscan producer Le Macchiole.

Continue reading Review, Cabernet Franc Tasting

Update (3/5): Event is full. Be on the lookout for April’s tasting where we’ll focus on Chardonnay.

Update (2/23): This is a pre-paid event. The cost will be $65.00 per person and will be charged to your credit card about 10 days prior to the event. Please direct all inquiries to me (Jason).

Dear friends of Rappahannock Cellars,

I am happy to announce the first of a series of “production” tastings, on Saturday March 14 at 3:00 p.m. here at the winery. A “production” tasting is one on which your own wine is put up against other producer’s wines. The scale can be as limited or grand as you want. But the idea is to see how your wine stacks up against others out there. Wineries do this for several reasons. The first is to prevent what is called “house” palate – meaning that your palate is so used to tasting only your own wines that you forget what else it out there. The second reason is to better position your wine and style with a benchmark wine, a wine that is widely considered to be superior to everything else.

Continue reading Cabernet Franc Production Tasting

I’m happy to report that the first of our 2008 wines are now in bottle: the 2008 Seyval Blanc, the 2008 Noblesse Viognier, and the 2008 Rosé. Our bumper crop of Viognier last year allowed us to upgrade our Noblesse Blanc to 100% Viognier. The 2008 vintage brought us ripe grapes but with more acidity than in the past. Because of this, I increased the residual sugar level in this wine to twice what it had been – from 0.8% to 1.6% residual sugar. In winemaking, the goal is balance and this wine simply called from more sweetness to balance the higher than normal acidity. The Seyval Blanc is once again a dry, austere, stainless steel Seyval that will be perfect for the summer time. The Rosé this year is derived from 50% Merlot and 50% Cabernet Franc – the first time it has been made from this much Merlot. I believe the color and aromatics in this wine are an improvment from previous vintages.

Continue reading Cellar Update: February 2009

The old saying “you learn something new every day” cant be more appropriate than the lesson I recently learned from a humble wine glass supplier. Having never given it much thought, I had always considered the notion of different wine glass, for differing styles and types of wines, to be nothing more than a “marketing gimmick”. Oh contraire, as I have now learned, it can make all the difference in the world!

Continue reading The Wine Glass

Things are finally returning to normal in the cellar following the harvest. Our last bottling 3 weeks ago freed up many barrels that are now home to 2008 vintage wines. Wines that were inoculated with malolactic culture are finishing up malolactic fermentation (the bacterial conversion of malic acid to lactic acid) that gave me plenty of concern this time last year. That’s because coaxing the bacteria through malolactic fermentation in a high alcohol wine (characteristic of ’07) is one of the most difficult situations that a winemaker will encounter.

Continue reading Cellar Update: Making White and Rose Win...

This past Wednesday (Nov 26) marked the end of “harvest” with the pressing of the last grapes, Norton. I say “harvest” because, even though the last grapes were harvested from the vine last month (Oct 22), from a winemaker’s perspective, harvest encompasses all the raw processing of the grapes. So now the Norton wine is pressed off its skins and now begins the next phase of processing wine in the cellar. The French call this elevage, which simply means “aging.”

Continue reading Cellar Update: End of Harvest 2008

There are no two ways around it – this is a competitive, global industry. Behind the smiles of the tasting room is a business fighting for shelf space and the attention of their distributor. Take away the label and the name, and there is little to differentiate one ordinary wine from another. So how does one winery distinguish itself from the one down the road and a thousand others selling the same thing? Nowadays, it is their attitude towards the environment. Being progressive and “green” is the hottest thing since the cork closure. But what does this mean for a winery? You’d be surprised at the lengths we go to.

Continue reading Going Green

Grape growing and winemaking is an old industry. Really old. We even know there have been wine critics since Roman times. One asset of working in such an old industry is that a lot of important decisions have already been made for us. For example, we know that Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon have been and will likely always be very popular grapes to grow and make wine from. Humans are naturally very curious critters and have been selecting and breeding grape varieties since we’ve been making wine. When we see an odd grape vine that has a special characteristic, say the vine seems to be more disease resistant or makes better quality fruit, we take it and clone a million more grape vines from it. That’s the nature of discovery and progress. So, after several thousand years of concentrated selection and breeding I feel comfortable that we have grape varieties that have stood the test of time as being compatible with human tastes.

Continue reading Wild Wines, or Better Wines?

It started innocently enough, “Wine is made in the vineyard.” Hyperbole wrapped in an off the cuff remark to reflect the fact the most important component in wine quality is the quality of the grapes. Well, this now oft-referenced cliché was just the starting point in a recent trend to push the perception of a minimalist approach to winemaking. Generally, this idea suggests that the less influence the winemaker has in the process, the better. But now it has come to mean that everything a wine needs to be excellent exists in the grapes at harvest, a “non-interventionist” approach.

Continue reading Mystical Winemaking