Happy late Winter and early Spring ! I used to live in the middle of the Gaspé Peninsula, where we would receive over 20’ of snow each year, the temperature would get to -13°F and the nearest McDonalds was 2 hours away. Those were hard winters. This winter is just a pain in the bum. Busted water pipe somewhere 800’ between the tasting room and the well head, tearing the road apart with the plow blade, sliding uncontrollably halfway down the mountain on a sheet of ice and nearly decapitating myself on trellis wire, high winds rearranging deck furniture in the Merlot block and simply brutal pruning weather. The silver lining: pond hockey. The vines aren’t complaining yet. They have been enjoying a deep winter slumber under a warm blanket of snow. We start to get nervous if absolute temperatures get below 0°F. The lowest we’ve recorded so far is 4°F, however, March has proven itself to be quite a wild card in the past. We often reference how variable the growing season is in VA; the winters are quite variable as well. As the weather begins to warm the vines will start waking up. We will begin to see sap flow when making our final pruning cuts. The French refer to the sap dripping from the pruning wound as crying – bleeding would be a more accurate description. The sap hardens off and seals the cut, protecting it from infection. This is why we wait as long as possible to do the final pruning. If you’ve been to Capstone recently, you’ll notice the large piles of clippings we’ve already made from our rough pruning, when all is said and done we cut back roughly 70-80% of the vine each year. Pruning is a slow, methodical process which, in theory, we have plenty of time to complete. I love pruning. Being outside with the vines and one’s own thoughts is very serene and with all the snow we’ve had, super bright. The cuts we make now affect crop load, vine health, and vigor for the vintage so it’s important to take your time and be quite deliberate with your decisions. Sometimes it feels like rugby pre-season. Trimming the fat, motivating the team and trying to set them up for success with a game plan and training. We definitely hit the ground bottling since January – over 2000 cases so far. A typical bottling week entails two full days of filtering, one long day of bottling, then half a day of cleaning. We’ve been doing this once a week since January 12th. At my alma mater this was easy to delegate to the cellar crew, now it’s much simpler - I only have to delegate to myself and Francis. Most winemakers despise bottling as it’s a slow, tedious process during which any number of issues can arise. I very much appreciate having our own bottling line in house at Fox Meadow where we have been making all our wine over the last 3 years. This last step is arguably one of the most important parts of the process. In most cases you’ve been nurturing the grapes from planting to picking, to fermentation, aging and finally the last touch, putting it into a bottle. In 2025 I started consulting for Reitano Vineyards in Front Royal - 15 min from Capstone. One of my roles was to design and purchase all the equipment for a cellar that can do some high quality volume. I couldn’t be more grateful to Fox Meadow for allowing us to move in like a hurricane and squeeze more grapes through that 50’x50’ space than most people would be comfortable with. Now I’ve got 13K sq/ft of space in which to roll up my sleeves and get down to business. Francis walked in when it was finished, took one look and said “this is what I’m talking about”. In that vein we will be doing some barrel tastings at Reitano so you all can see the space and taste some of the ‘25 Capstone Vineyards vintage. The first one will be Friday, April 24th from 5:30-7pm for our wine club members. Reitano is open until 9pm and has a full restaurant (and cigar lounge) so I encourage you to spend time afterwards enjoying the food, wine, and ambience upstairs. Our tasting menu is going to change a bit starting this weekend, we are proud to include a Gold Medal Tasting option. This will consist of the Francis, St. Dominic and 2023 Merlot which all took Golds in the Virginia Governors Cup this year! Our next Club allotment will be released the weekend of March 26th and includes our first ever Sparkling Rosé, the Sparkling Cider and 2024 Merlot. We look forward to hearing your feedback on the new wines. Mark your 2026 Calendar: Friday, April 24th: First CV Barrel Tasting 5:30-7pm, more dates to come. Saturday, May 16th: Coq Fight Winemaker’s Dinner at Reitano - This is our first competition style dinner for the year and will be featuring side by side chicken courses from Whiffletree and Keystone Farms paired with our Capstone wines. We are so appreciative to have the extra space to accommodate you all. Saturday, July 11th: Cattle Battle Sunday, October 18th: Harvest & Hog
Happy New Year! We hope this message finds you well. It’s been a busy start to the year at Capstone—spreading 125 yards of compost, bottling early whites, blending reds, and disgorging sparkling wine. We’re excited to share that our 2023 Traditional Method Sparkling Chardonnay is officially back on the menu. We’ll be pouring complimentary tastings this weekend , after which it will be available by the glass and bottle. To be completely honest (and not so humble), there are some really beautiful wines in the pipeline. Just yesterday, a winemaker from Champagne tasted our ‘23 Sparkling Chardonnay and described it as elegant and refined. The French don’t tend to blow smoke, so we’ll happily take that compliment at face value. We’ve also bottled the Sauvignon Blanc, Blanc de Franc, and Rose—each one outstanding. The 2024 reds are fully assembled and tasting great, with cider and Sparkling Rosé next up for bottling. Exciting times indeed here at Capstone. Our first Club Pickup Weekend of the year will be January 30th . This is a very special release, honoring our three children who have put in tremendous work and shown incredible patience with Capstone (and their parents) since we acquired the property. The ‘23 Francis , ‘24 Lucienne , and ‘25 Rose make up this allotment. Credit cards on file will be processed on January 28th . Please note that we will be closed Thursday, January 29th , for our staff appreciation day. Looking ahead to Valentine’s weekend, if you’re searching for something fun and delicious to do, we’d love to see you. From February 12-16 , we’ll be pairing our Sparkling Chardonnay, Rose, and Merlot with lemon curd, strawberry cake, and a chocolate mousse tart. We’re also just about finalized on dates for our three upcoming dinners and will be in touch soon with details. We look forward to seeing you and sharing all these new wines with you. We are open until 6pm on Fridays and Saturdays during the winter months. Come enjoy a glass and a sunset.
As some things wind down, others wind up… The vines have lost most of their leaves and are nearly tucked in for the winter. The 2025 wines are buttoned up in tank or barrel, quietly doing their thing. Meanwhile, we’ve begun assembling the 2024 red blends and are picking up cider for one last ferment of the year — this is one of my favorite times in the cellar. There's a lot to be grateful for. Certainly we had a stellar vintage, which is always rewarding. The business is doing well - thanks primarily to you all. We seem to have a bright future - thanks primarily to my family. They started on what would be considered a relatively challenging endeavor with me, and have put in so much work, time, and love into Capstone. As you know Francis and Rose have had wines made in honor of their hard work. However, there is an unsung hero whose wine has yet to be released and whose help with everything I’m very thankful for. Lucienne is a blend of 54% Chenin Blanc, 29% Sauvignon Blanc, and 17% Roussanne. My daughter, Lucy, worked on this special blend with me. In fact, we were down to two blends out of seven and Lucy picked the one she liked the most. We are releasing it this weekend - just in time for Thanksgiving! The 2024 red blending is just beginning. Right now it’s just a matter of tasting through a lot of barrels, pulling samples and sketching out some preliminary blends. Then we get a bit more formal by bringing in some trusted pallets for a couple weeks of tasting and blending sessions - certainly one of the more fun parts of the job. The reds from 24’ are really good. They have lost some of their nerve after 12 months in barrel and are showing wonderful dark, ripe fruit characters with supple tannin. You will start seeing this released in the Spring 2026. The cider is kind of like the last hurrah for the vintage. The apple guys were hard hit with a spring frost and lost most of their Hewes Crab, so the one change to this years blend is swapping Harrison for Hewes. We still have the Gold Rush, Winesap, Arkansas Black and Black Twig. In fact the last two and still hanging on the trees - that's all we’re waiting on. They say cider apples aren’t ripe until they’re on the ground. As we come into this season of gratitude and giving, I wanted to make sure to express my and my families thanks to you all. We are forever grateful for your friendship and support. Please pay a visit, and be on the look out for some special releases and an exciting wine club announcement. Cheers to a fruitful harvest and a Happy Thanksgiving!
As Fall draws to a close and the Holiday season begins, we would like to announce the Q4 wine club allotment…2 bottles of our 2024 Sparkling C² and 1 bottle of our 2023 Cabernet Franc, a perfect toast for all the celebrations to come! We will be charging cards on file this Wednesday, October 29th . Wines will be ready for pick up starting Thursday. If you need to update any of your information, please click the button below to login to your Capstone Account. Many of you have been asking about the Cider - we’re waiting on the Arkansas Black and Black Twig apples to fall, but should have this available again by Christmas! We just finished pressing off the last of the reds - Petit Verdot. Certainly, last but not least. The reds have impressed me as much as the whites. What a stunning vintage. The wines are refined and elegant - a contrast to the large, dense wines from 2023 and 2024. A more detailed update to come shortly. We hope to see you all soon. We are so grateful for your support of CV.
Mother Nature certainly has a way of keeping us on our toes. In my last update, I shared some skepticism about this vintage after a frosty early spring, heavy summer rains, and the return of the Spotted Lantern Fly. But the tide has turned — we’ve had a stellar end of summer and ripening period, and the vintage seems to have done a complete 180 (knocking on wood as I say that). Our white and rosé fruit is already in the cellar and fermenting away. One of my favorite smells in the winery is newly fermenting juice, and the wines coming out of tank right now show incredible acidity, concentration, balance, and length. Once fermentation wraps up, that’s when the tasting, talking, and decision-making begin. Much of the science of winemaking happens between harvest and the end of fermentation. But the artistry comes after: choosing whether a wine moves into another tank, a barrel (and if so, which type of oak), or even clay; deciding how much lees (the dead yeast) to incorporate during aging; weighing whether the wine stands on its own or might benefit from blending; determining how often to stir the lees to build texture. These decisions shape the style and soul of the final wine. I was slightly nervous pressing our Cabernet Franc for our first Blanc de Franc — the juice came off a bit more pink than I’d hoped. Fortunately, yeast can leach color during fermentation, and so far it looks like we may end up with the true white Cabernet Franc I envisioned. We picked the remainder of our Cabernet Franc for red wine last Friday and processed it at the new facility I designed at Reitano Vineyards, just 20 minutes from Capstone. The fruit came in clean and ripe, and the new equipment worked beautifully—some late-season wins all around. Our Cabernet Sauvignon might actually be a blockbuster this year — something that almost never happens. I honestly can’t tell you the last time I let fruit hang into October, but based on current forecasts we will ride this nice stretch out and perhaps start picking again in a week or two. Yields are down about 30%, but quality looks poised to surpass 2024. It would take divine intervention to match the 2023 vintage, but if 2025 has taught us anything, it’s that nothing’s certain until the fruit is in. Changing gears - We’re so incredibly grateful for our Wine Club members and are excited to announce an all-day Harvest Winemaker’s Party , featuring CJ’s Western BBQ and live Bluegrass music. We are staying open late. Let’s celebrate! October 18th Capstone Vineyard Harvest Party (12pm–8pm) : Open to everyone! We’ll have live bluegrass music, plenty of food, and of course, great wine. This will be a fun, relaxed day and a perfect chance to catch up, enjoy some music, and hear more about harvest and all the happenings at Capstone. We look forward to seeing you soon and sharing this exciting season with you.
Well, it’s certainly been an interesting growing season. A cool, wet spring delayed bud break and stunted shoot growth, and early sightings of Spotted Lantern Fly raised concern of another pest-filled harvest. On top of that, we’ve been warned about an especially severe hurricane season. Thankfully, we’ve only had a couple of flood watches — one lasting 25 days and another for 30. It’s times like these when the importance of site selection really shows. Despite intense downpours and prolonged wetting periods, our vineyard drains remarkably well. Water quickly filters through the rocky soils and runs off the hillside, ensuring the vines never sit saturated for too long. In fact, all this rain has been a bit of a blessing. Our two acres of new plantings look like they’re on steroids, and the mature vines haven’t looked this vibrant in years — a welcome sight after two dry seasons. Our aquifers are also finally replenished! This vintage is looking a little suspect for red wines — but no worries there. We’re well-stocked with exceptional reds from the last two vintages. We keep running out of white, sparkling and rosé so I had already planned to lean into those wines this year. Keep your eyes out for something special: a white Cabernet Franc, or as we like to call it, Blanc de Franc! We recently bottled our Lucienne and Roussanne — both are stunning wines. Up next is our final bottling before harvest: Sparkling C2. Yep, it’s back! This year’s blend is 93% Chardonnay and 7% Chenin Blanc (most of the Chenin went into the Lucienne blend). For our Q3 wine club allocation , you’ll be receiving Francis, St. Dominic, and Roussanne. We’ll be running cards on file Wednesday, July 30th , and wines will be available for pickup starting Thursday, July 31st . If you need to update your information, please email us at info@capstonevineyards.com . And finally, we have a new face behind that email — Anita, our new tasting room manager. She brings a strong hospitality background, is very engaging and a joy to be around. Jess left some big shoes to fill, and Anita is already stepping in with grace and enthusiasm. Come by to pick up your wines, bring a picnic, and say hello!
As we step into the heart of winter, it’s exciting to imagine what the season might bring. After several mild, low-precipitation winters, it feels like we’re due for a long, cold, and snowy stretch—and the Farmer’s Almanac seems to agree.
I’m writing this after a brisk walk up the mountain, prompted by an unexpected adventure: I got the tractor stuck at the bottom of the property clearing snow. While our tracked tractors are fantastic for preventing soil erosion, reducing compaction, and gripping well in the vineyard, they’re not exactly ideal for navigating snow and ice. Going downhill? No problem. Getting back up? That’s another story entirely!
We’re thrilled to be kicking off our third year operating Capstone. The first two years have been an incredible learning journey, helping us lay a strong foundation to build upon.
2025 promises to be an exciting and pivotal year as we continue to push boundaries and grow. We’re preparing to finance, build, and equip a state-of-the-art production facility, spread 6
As the weather cools down, things are heating up in the cellar and tasting room!
First off, a big thank you to Big Whisky Beef Co, Cottonwood Ranch, and Cypress Street Coffee Roasters for making the ‘Cattle Battle’ such a success. We’re thrilled by the enthusiasm for these events and will be hosting more in the future—keep an eye out for dates, and be sure to grab your tickets quickly; they sold out in less than 48 hours!
I’m excited to announce our next culinary showdown, the ‘Coq Fight’ in January, featuring two poultry farms battling it out. In the Spring, we’ll host ‘Of Swine and Wine’ , Summer will be a ‘Garden Party’ for our vegetarian friends, and many more delicious events to come.
Join us this Sunday, November 3rd, for our third Sparkling Sunday! Enjoy sweet and savory pastries from Melania’s Bakery, mimosas, and live music by John Lamirande, a retired Army musician with an impressive 27-year career. It’s the perfect way to relax before Veteran’s Day weekend.
From November 7th to 11th, we invite
Happy Harvest, Everyone!
This is one of the more rewarding times of the year as we focus our attention on picking grapes and making wine. These two aspects are why many of us get into the industry - sales are typically an afterthought.
Wine grape harvest is exciting in whatever region of the world you may be, but Virginia has some unique qualities that define our terroir. The biggest factor is nature and how wildly different each vintage is. Precipitation, temperature extremes, invasive and noninvasive species have eliminated the term “normal growing season” from our repertoire. This is why growers and winemakers in VA are some of the finest in the world as there is no room for complacency. The seasonal challenges we experience force us to adapt our practices, decisions and style each year, but our focus on quality fruit and wine production never waiver.
We finished picking this past Sunday! The wines coming out of fermentor are absolutely delicious. We were blessed with another high quality and slightly
Hello Everyone, I hope this email finds you all well. This has been a very fast-paced Spring here at the vineyard. Bud break was very uniform between the varietals. Watching the shoot growth after bud break was reminiscent of a horse taking off out of the gate - the vines look like they were taking steroids in the off-season! Certainly, all this wet weather has helped with the development, which is fine this time of year, but we hope the rain starts to go away over the next couple of weeks before bloom. Commercial grape vines are hermaphroditic, so they don’t rely on bees or other pollinators to fertilize the fruit. Rather, each berry will push a small cap off with 5 anthers, once that cap falls the fruit is fertilized and we have fruit set. During bloom, which should take place in a couple of weeks, we hope for calm weather with no rain in order to facilitate this process. Once we have the fruit set we will go through and start counting the clusters to get a potential yield estimate for the vineyard. So far everything looks quite healthy in the vineyard, but it is still early in the season. The only cause for concern at this stage is the number of Spotted Lantern Fly (SLF) nymphs we are seeing. The nymphs are not harmful to the vine, however, the adults will feed on the vascular system of the vine and if in great enough numbers, they could literally suck the life out of the vine - new plantings are particularly susceptible. This is one reason I held off on planting this year, hoping these little buggers will continue to migrate South. In the Spring of 2025, we will start planting more of what we already have and add new acreage of Albariño and Gruner Veltliner. The only other change is ripping out the infernal Muscat Ottonell. So, if you like this style of wine you’re only chance to buy our first and last iteration will be from 2023. We finished our first round of bottling from the 2023 vintage: Sauvignon Blanc, Roussanne, Chardonnay, and Muscat. I wish we had a lot more of the wines but the 2023 vintage did not yield large quantities, however, the quality is through the roof. We are seeing a lot more traffic through the tasting room and increased sales this year so I had to pull several wines from the tasting menu. Our 2022 C2, 2023 Roussanne, and 2022 Vintners Blend are now club wines and only available by the bottle. Given how busy we have been on the weekends we decided to start opening from Thursday - Monday to help spread out the flow a bit. As always, thank you for your support and we look forward to seeing you soon.
Happy late Winter and early Spring ! I used to live in the middle of the Gaspé Peninsula, where we would receive over 20’ of snow each year, the temperature would get to -13°F and the nearest McDonalds was 2 hours away. Those were hard winters. This winter is just a pain in the bum. Busted water pipe somewhere 800’ between the tasting room and the well head, tearing the road apart with the plow blade, sliding uncontrollably halfway down the mountain on a sheet of ice and nearly decapitating myself on trellis wire, high winds rearranging deck furniture in the Merlot block and simply brutal pruning weather. The silver lining: pond hockey. The vines aren’t complaining yet. They have been enjoying a deep winter slumber under a warm blanket of snow. We start to get nervous if absolute temperatures get below 0°F. The lowest we’ve recorded so far is 4°F, however, March has proven itself to be quite a wild card in the past. We often reference how variable the growing season is in VA; the winters are quite variable as well. As the weather begins to warm the vines will start waking up. We will begin to see sap flow when making our final pruning cuts. The French refer to the sap dripping from the pruning wound as crying – bleeding would be a more accurate description. The sap hardens off and seals the cut, protecting it from infection. This is why we wait as long as possible to do the final pruning. If you’ve been to Capstone recently, you’ll notice the large piles of clippings we’ve already made from our rough pruning, when all is said and done we cut back roughly 70-80% of the vine each year. Pruning is a slow, methodical process which, in theory, we have plenty of time to complete. I love pruning. Being outside with the vines and one’s own thoughts is very serene and with all the snow we’ve had, super bright. The cuts we make now affect crop load, vine health, and vigor for the vintage so it’s important to take your time and be quite deliberate with your decisions. Sometimes it feels like rugby pre-season. Trimming the fat, motivating the team and trying to set them up for success with a game plan and training. We definitely hit the ground bottling since January – over 2000 cases so far. A typical bottling week entails two full days of filtering, one long day of bottling, then half a day of cleaning. We’ve been doing this once a week since January 12th. At my alma mater this was easy to delegate to the cellar crew, now it’s much simpler - I only have to delegate to myself and Francis. Most winemakers despise bottling as it’s a slow, tedious process during which any number of issues can arise. I very much appreciate having our own bottling line in house at Fox Meadow where we have been making all our wine over the last 3 years. This last step is arguably one of the most important parts of the process. In most cases you’ve been nurturing the grapes from planting to picking, to fermentation, aging and finally the last touch, putting it into a bottle. In 2025 I started consulting for Reitano Vineyards in Front Royal - 15 min from Capstone. One of my roles was to design and purchase all the equipment for a cellar that can do some high quality volume. I couldn’t be more grateful to Fox Meadow for allowing us to move in like a hurricane and squeeze more grapes through that 50’x50’ space than most people would be comfortable with. Now I’ve got 13K sq/ft of space in which to roll up my sleeves and get down to business. Francis walked in when it was finished, took one look and said “this is what I’m talking about”. In that vein we will be doing some barrel tastings at Reitano so you all can see the space and taste some of the ‘25 Capstone Vineyards vintage. The first one will be Friday, April 24th from 5:30-7pm for our wine club members. Reitano is open until 9pm and has a full restaurant (and cigar lounge) so I encourage you to spend time afterwards enjoying the food, wine, and ambience upstairs. Our tasting menu is going to change a bit starting this weekend, we are proud to include a Gold Medal Tasting option. This will consist of the Francis, St. Dominic and 2023 Merlot which all took Golds in the Virginia Governors Cup this year! Our next Club allotment will be released the weekend of March 26th and includes our first ever Sparkling Rosé, the Sparkling Cider and 2024 Merlot. We look forward to hearing your feedback on the new wines. Mark your 2026 Calendar: Friday, April 24th: First CV Barrel Tasting 5:30-7pm, more dates to come. Saturday, May 16th: Coq Fight Winemaker’s Dinner at Reitano - This is our first competition style dinner for the year and will be featuring side by side chicken courses from Whiffletree and Keystone Farms paired with our Capstone wines. We are so appreciative to have the extra space to accommodate you all. Saturday, July 11th: Cattle Battle Sunday, October 18th: Harvest & Hog
Happy New Year! We hope this message finds you well. It’s been a busy start to the year at Capstone—spreading 125 yards of compost, bottling early whites, blending reds, and disgorging sparkling wine. We’re excited to share that our 2023 Traditional Method Sparkling Chardonnay is officially back on the menu. We’ll be pouring complimentary tastings this weekend , after which it will be available by the glass and bottle. To be completely honest (and not so humble), there are some really beautiful wines in the pipeline. Just yesterday, a winemaker from Champagne tasted our ‘23 Sparkling Chardonnay and described it as elegant and refined. The French don’t tend to blow smoke, so we’ll happily take that compliment at face value. We’ve also bottled the Sauvignon Blanc, Blanc de Franc, and Rose—each one outstanding. The 2024 reds are fully assembled and tasting great, with cider and Sparkling Rosé next up for bottling. Exciting times indeed here at Capstone. Our first Club Pickup Weekend of the year will be January 30th . This is a very special release, honoring our three children who have put in tremendous work and shown incredible patience with Capstone (and their parents) since we acquired the property. The ‘23 Francis , ‘24 Lucienne , and ‘25 Rose make up this allotment. Credit cards on file will be processed on January 28th . Please note that we will be closed Thursday, January 29th , for our staff appreciation day. Looking ahead to Valentine’s weekend, if you’re searching for something fun and delicious to do, we’d love to see you. From February 12-16 , we’ll be pairing our Sparkling Chardonnay, Rose, and Merlot with lemon curd, strawberry cake, and a chocolate mousse tart. We’re also just about finalized on dates for our three upcoming dinners and will be in touch soon with details. We look forward to seeing you and sharing all these new wines with you. We are open until 6pm on Fridays and Saturdays during the winter months. Come enjoy a glass and a sunset.
As some things wind down, others wind up… The vines have lost most of their leaves and are nearly tucked in for the winter. The 2025 wines are buttoned up in tank or barrel, quietly doing their thing. Meanwhile, we’ve begun assembling the 2024 red blends and are picking up cider for one last ferment of the year — this is one of my favorite times in the cellar. There's a lot to be grateful for. Certainly we had a stellar vintage, which is always rewarding. The business is doing well - thanks primarily to you all. We seem to have a bright future - thanks primarily to my family. They started on what would be considered a relatively challenging endeavor with me, and have put in so much work, time, and love into Capstone. As you know Francis and Rose have had wines made in honor of their hard work. However, there is an unsung hero whose wine has yet to be released and whose help with everything I’m very thankful for. Lucienne is a blend of 54% Chenin Blanc, 29% Sauvignon Blanc, and 17% Roussanne. My daughter, Lucy, worked on this special blend with me. In fact, we were down to two blends out of seven and Lucy picked the one she liked the most. We are releasing it this weekend - just in time for Thanksgiving! The 2024 red blending is just beginning. Right now it’s just a matter of tasting through a lot of barrels, pulling samples and sketching out some preliminary blends. Then we get a bit more formal by bringing in some trusted pallets for a couple weeks of tasting and blending sessions - certainly one of the more fun parts of the job. The reds from 24’ are really good. They have lost some of their nerve after 12 months in barrel and are showing wonderful dark, ripe fruit characters with supple tannin. You will start seeing this released in the Spring 2026. The cider is kind of like the last hurrah for the vintage. The apple guys were hard hit with a spring frost and lost most of their Hewes Crab, so the one change to this years blend is swapping Harrison for Hewes. We still have the Gold Rush, Winesap, Arkansas Black and Black Twig. In fact the last two and still hanging on the trees - that's all we’re waiting on. They say cider apples aren’t ripe until they’re on the ground. As we come into this season of gratitude and giving, I wanted to make sure to express my and my families thanks to you all. We are forever grateful for your friendship and support. Please pay a visit, and be on the look out for some special releases and an exciting wine club announcement. Cheers to a fruitful harvest and a Happy Thanksgiving!
As Fall draws to a close and the Holiday season begins, we would like to announce the Q4 wine club allotment…2 bottles of our 2024 Sparkling C² and 1 bottle of our 2023 Cabernet Franc, a perfect toast for all the celebrations to come! We will be charging cards on file this Wednesday, October 29th . Wines will be ready for pick up starting Thursday. If you need to update any of your information, please click the button below to login to your Capstone Account. Many of you have been asking about the Cider - we’re waiting on the Arkansas Black and Black Twig apples to fall, but should have this available again by Christmas! We just finished pressing off the last of the reds - Petit Verdot. Certainly, last but not least. The reds have impressed me as much as the whites. What a stunning vintage. The wines are refined and elegant - a contrast to the large, dense wines from 2023 and 2024. A more detailed update to come shortly. We hope to see you all soon. We are so grateful for your support of CV.
Mother Nature certainly has a way of keeping us on our toes. In my last update, I shared some skepticism about this vintage after a frosty early spring, heavy summer rains, and the return of the Spotted Lantern Fly. But the tide has turned — we’ve had a stellar end of summer and ripening period, and the vintage seems to have done a complete 180 (knocking on wood as I say that). Our white and rosé fruit is already in the cellar and fermenting away. One of my favorite smells in the winery is newly fermenting juice, and the wines coming out of tank right now show incredible acidity, concentration, balance, and length. Once fermentation wraps up, that’s when the tasting, talking, and decision-making begin. Much of the science of winemaking happens between harvest and the end of fermentation. But the artistry comes after: choosing whether a wine moves into another tank, a barrel (and if so, which type of oak), or even clay; deciding how much lees (the dead yeast) to incorporate during aging; weighing whether the wine stands on its own or might benefit from blending; determining how often to stir the lees to build texture. These decisions shape the style and soul of the final wine. I was slightly nervous pressing our Cabernet Franc for our first Blanc de Franc — the juice came off a bit more pink than I’d hoped. Fortunately, yeast can leach color during fermentation, and so far it looks like we may end up with the true white Cabernet Franc I envisioned. We picked the remainder of our Cabernet Franc for red wine last Friday and processed it at the new facility I designed at Reitano Vineyards, just 20 minutes from Capstone. The fruit came in clean and ripe, and the new equipment worked beautifully—some late-season wins all around. Our Cabernet Sauvignon might actually be a blockbuster this year — something that almost never happens. I honestly can’t tell you the last time I let fruit hang into October, but based on current forecasts we will ride this nice stretch out and perhaps start picking again in a week or two. Yields are down about 30%, but quality looks poised to surpass 2024. It would take divine intervention to match the 2023 vintage, but if 2025 has taught us anything, it’s that nothing’s certain until the fruit is in. Changing gears - We’re so incredibly grateful for our Wine Club members and are excited to announce an all-day Harvest Winemaker’s Party , featuring CJ’s Western BBQ and live Bluegrass music. We are staying open late. Let’s celebrate! October 18th Capstone Vineyard Harvest Party (12pm–8pm) : Open to everyone! We’ll have live bluegrass music, plenty of food, and of course, great wine. This will be a fun, relaxed day and a perfect chance to catch up, enjoy some music, and hear more about harvest and all the happenings at Capstone. We look forward to seeing you soon and sharing this exciting season with you.
Well, it’s certainly been an interesting growing season. A cool, wet spring delayed bud break and stunted shoot growth, and early sightings of Spotted Lantern Fly raised concern of another pest-filled harvest. On top of that, we’ve been warned about an especially severe hurricane season. Thankfully, we’ve only had a couple of flood watches — one lasting 25 days and another for 30. It’s times like these when the importance of site selection really shows. Despite intense downpours and prolonged wetting periods, our vineyard drains remarkably well. Water quickly filters through the rocky soils and runs off the hillside, ensuring the vines never sit saturated for too long. In fact, all this rain has been a bit of a blessing. Our two acres of new plantings look like they’re on steroids, and the mature vines haven’t looked this vibrant in years — a welcome sight after two dry seasons. Our aquifers are also finally replenished! This vintage is looking a little suspect for red wines — but no worries there. We’re well-stocked with exceptional reds from the last two vintages. We keep running out of white, sparkling and rosé so I had already planned to lean into those wines this year. Keep your eyes out for something special: a white Cabernet Franc, or as we like to call it, Blanc de Franc! We recently bottled our Lucienne and Roussanne — both are stunning wines. Up next is our final bottling before harvest: Sparkling C2. Yep, it’s back! This year’s blend is 93% Chardonnay and 7% Chenin Blanc (most of the Chenin went into the Lucienne blend). For our Q3 wine club allocation , you’ll be receiving Francis, St. Dominic, and Roussanne. We’ll be running cards on file Wednesday, July 30th , and wines will be available for pickup starting Thursday, July 31st . If you need to update your information, please email us at info@capstonevineyards.com . And finally, we have a new face behind that email — Anita, our new tasting room manager. She brings a strong hospitality background, is very engaging and a joy to be around. Jess left some big shoes to fill, and Anita is already stepping in with grace and enthusiasm. Come by to pick up your wines, bring a picnic, and say hello!
As we step into the heart of winter, it’s exciting to imagine what the season might bring. After several mild, low-precipitation winters, it feels like we’re due for a long, cold, and snowy stretch—and the Farmer’s Almanac seems to agree.
I’m writing this after a brisk walk up the mountain, prompted by an unexpected adventure: I got the tractor stuck at the bottom of the property clearing snow. While our tracked tractors are fantastic for preventing soil erosion, reducing compaction, and gripping well in the vineyard, they’re not exactly ideal for navigating snow and ice. Going downhill? No problem. Getting back up? That’s another story entirely!
We’re thrilled to be kicking off our third year operating Capstone. The first two years have been an incredible learning journey, helping us lay a strong foundation to build upon.
2025 promises to be an exciting and pivotal year as we continue to push boundaries and grow. We’re preparing to finance, build, and equip a state-of-the-art production facility, spread 6
As the weather cools down, things are heating up in the cellar and tasting room!
First off, a big thank you to Big Whisky Beef Co, Cottonwood Ranch, and Cypress Street Coffee Roasters for making the ‘Cattle Battle’ such a success. We’re thrilled by the enthusiasm for these events and will be hosting more in the future—keep an eye out for dates, and be sure to grab your tickets quickly; they sold out in less than 48 hours!
I’m excited to announce our next culinary showdown, the ‘Coq Fight’ in January, featuring two poultry farms battling it out. In the Spring, we’ll host ‘Of Swine and Wine’ , Summer will be a ‘Garden Party’ for our vegetarian friends, and many more delicious events to come.
Join us this Sunday, November 3rd, for our third Sparkling Sunday! Enjoy sweet and savory pastries from Melania’s Bakery, mimosas, and live music by John Lamirande, a retired Army musician with an impressive 27-year career. It’s the perfect way to relax before Veteran’s Day weekend.
From November 7th to 11th, we invite
Happy Harvest, Everyone!
This is one of the more rewarding times of the year as we focus our attention on picking grapes and making wine. These two aspects are why many of us get into the industry - sales are typically an afterthought.
Wine grape harvest is exciting in whatever region of the world you may be, but Virginia has some unique qualities that define our terroir. The biggest factor is nature and how wildly different each vintage is. Precipitation, temperature extremes, invasive and noninvasive species have eliminated the term “normal growing season” from our repertoire. This is why growers and winemakers in VA are some of the finest in the world as there is no room for complacency. The seasonal challenges we experience force us to adapt our practices, decisions and style each year, but our focus on quality fruit and wine production never waiver.
We finished picking this past Sunday! The wines coming out of fermentor are absolutely delicious. We were blessed with another high quality and slightly
Hello Everyone, I hope this email finds you all well. This has been a very fast-paced Spring here at the vineyard. Bud break was very uniform between the varietals. Watching the shoot growth after bud break was reminiscent of a horse taking off out of the gate - the vines look like they were taking steroids in the off-season! Certainly, all this wet weather has helped with the development, which is fine this time of year, but we hope the rain starts to go away over the next couple of weeks before bloom. Commercial grape vines are hermaphroditic, so they don’t rely on bees or other pollinators to fertilize the fruit. Rather, each berry will push a small cap off with 5 anthers, once that cap falls the fruit is fertilized and we have fruit set. During bloom, which should take place in a couple of weeks, we hope for calm weather with no rain in order to facilitate this process. Once we have the fruit set we will go through and start counting the clusters to get a potential yield estimate for the vineyard. So far everything looks quite healthy in the vineyard, but it is still early in the season. The only cause for concern at this stage is the number of Spotted Lantern Fly (SLF) nymphs we are seeing. The nymphs are not harmful to the vine, however, the adults will feed on the vascular system of the vine and if in great enough numbers, they could literally suck the life out of the vine - new plantings are particularly susceptible. This is one reason I held off on planting this year, hoping these little buggers will continue to migrate South. In the Spring of 2025, we will start planting more of what we already have and add new acreage of Albariño and Gruner Veltliner. The only other change is ripping out the infernal Muscat Ottonell. So, if you like this style of wine you’re only chance to buy our first and last iteration will be from 2023. We finished our first round of bottling from the 2023 vintage: Sauvignon Blanc, Roussanne, Chardonnay, and Muscat. I wish we had a lot more of the wines but the 2023 vintage did not yield large quantities, however, the quality is through the roof. We are seeing a lot more traffic through the tasting room and increased sales this year so I had to pull several wines from the tasting menu. Our 2022 C2, 2023 Roussanne, and 2022 Vintners Blend are now club wines and only available by the bottle. Given how busy we have been on the weekends we decided to start opening from Thursday - Monday to help spread out the flow a bit. As always, thank you for your support and we look forward to seeing you soon.
Happy late Winter and early Spring ! I used to live in the middle of the Gaspé Peninsula, where we would receive over 20’ of snow each year, the temperature would get to -13°F and the nearest McDonalds was 2 hours away. Those were hard winters. This winter is just a pain in the bum. Busted water pipe somewhere 800’ between the tasting room and the well head, tearing the road apart with the plow blade, sliding uncontrollably halfway down the mountain on a sheet of ice and nearly decapitating myself on trellis wire, high winds rearranging deck furniture in the Merlot block and simply brutal pruning weather. The silver lining: pond hockey. The vines aren’t complaining yet. They have been enjoying a deep winter slumber under a warm blanket of snow. We start to get nervous if absolute temperatures get below 0°F. The lowest we’ve recorded so far is 4°F, however, March has proven itself to be quite a wild card in the past. We often reference how variable the growing season is in VA; the winters are quite variable as well. As the weather begins to warm the vines will start waking up. We will begin to see sap flow when making our final pruning cuts. The French refer to the sap dripping from the pruning wound as crying – bleeding would be a more accurate description. The sap hardens off and seals the cut, protecting it from infection. This is why we wait as long as possible to do the final pruning. If you’ve been to Capstone recently, you’ll notice the large piles of clippings we’ve already made from our rough pruning, when all is said and done we cut back roughly 70-80% of the vine each year. Pruning is a slow, methodical process which, in theory, we have plenty of time to complete. I love pruning. Being outside with the vines and one’s own thoughts is very serene and with all the snow we’ve had, super bright. The cuts we make now affect crop load, vine health, and vigor for the vintage so it’s important to take your time and be quite deliberate with your decisions. Sometimes it feels like rugby pre-season. Trimming the fat, motivating the team and trying to set them up for success with a game plan and training. We definitely hit the ground bottling since January – over 2000 cases so far. A typical bottling week entails two full days of filtering, one long day of bottling, then half a day of cleaning. We’ve been doing this once a week since January 12th. At my alma mater this was easy to delegate to the cellar crew, now it’s much simpler - I only have to delegate to myself and Francis. Most winemakers despise bottling as it’s a slow, tedious process during which any number of issues can arise. I very much appreciate having our own bottling line in house at Fox Meadow where we have been making all our wine over the last 3 years. This last step is arguably one of the most important parts of the process. In most cases you’ve been nurturing the grapes from planting to picking, to fermentation, aging and finally the last touch, putting it into a bottle. In 2025 I started consulting for Reitano Vineyards in Front Royal - 15 min from Capstone. One of my roles was to design and purchase all the equipment for a cellar that can do some high quality volume. I couldn’t be more grateful to Fox Meadow for allowing us to move in like a hurricane and squeeze more grapes through that 50’x50’ space than most people would be comfortable with. Now I’ve got 13K sq/ft of space in which to roll up my sleeves and get down to business. Francis walked in when it was finished, took one look and said “this is what I’m talking about”. In that vein we will be doing some barrel tastings at Reitano so you all can see the space and taste some of the ‘25 Capstone Vineyards vintage. The first one will be Friday, April 24th from 5:30-7pm for our wine club members. Reitano is open until 9pm and has a full restaurant (and cigar lounge) so I encourage you to spend time afterwards enjoying the food, wine, and ambience upstairs. Our tasting menu is going to change a bit starting this weekend, we are proud to include a Gold Medal Tasting option. This will consist of the Francis, St. Dominic and 2023 Merlot which all took Golds in the Virginia Governors Cup this year! Our next Club allotment will be released the weekend of March 26th and includes our first ever Sparkling Rosé, the Sparkling Cider and 2024 Merlot. We look forward to hearing your feedback on the new wines. Mark your 2026 Calendar: Friday, April 24th: First CV Barrel Tasting 5:30-7pm, more dates to come. Saturday, May 16th: Coq Fight Winemaker’s Dinner at Reitano - This is our first competition style dinner for the year and will be featuring side by side chicken courses from Whiffletree and Keystone Farms paired with our Capstone wines. We are so appreciative to have the extra space to accommodate you all. Saturday, July 11th: Cattle Battle Sunday, October 18th: Harvest & Hog
Happy New Year! We hope this message finds you well. It’s been a busy start to the year at Capstone—spreading 125 yards of compost, bottling early whites, blending reds, and disgorging sparkling wine. We’re excited to share that our 2023 Traditional Method Sparkling Chardonnay is officially back on the menu. We’ll be pouring complimentary tastings this weekend , after which it will be available by the glass and bottle. To be completely honest (and not so humble), there are some really beautiful wines in the pipeline. Just yesterday, a winemaker from Champagne tasted our ‘23 Sparkling Chardonnay and described it as elegant and refined. The French don’t tend to blow smoke, so we’ll happily take that compliment at face value. We’ve also bottled the Sauvignon Blanc, Blanc de Franc, and Rose—each one outstanding. The 2024 reds are fully assembled and tasting great, with cider and Sparkling Rosé next up for bottling. Exciting times indeed here at Capstone. Our first Club Pickup Weekend of the year will be January 30th . This is a very special release, honoring our three children who have put in tremendous work and shown incredible patience with Capstone (and their parents) since we acquired the property. The ‘23 Francis , ‘24 Lucienne , and ‘25 Rose make up this allotment. Credit cards on file will be processed on January 28th . Please note that we will be closed Thursday, January 29th , for our staff appreciation day. Looking ahead to Valentine’s weekend, if you’re searching for something fun and delicious to do, we’d love to see you. From February 12-16 , we’ll be pairing our Sparkling Chardonnay, Rose, and Merlot with lemon curd, strawberry cake, and a chocolate mousse tart. We’re also just about finalized on dates for our three upcoming dinners and will be in touch soon with details. We look forward to seeing you and sharing all these new wines with you. We are open until 6pm on Fridays and Saturdays during the winter months. Come enjoy a glass and a sunset.
As some things wind down, others wind up… The vines have lost most of their leaves and are nearly tucked in for the winter. The 2025 wines are buttoned up in tank or barrel, quietly doing their thing. Meanwhile, we’ve begun assembling the 2024 red blends and are picking up cider for one last ferment of the year — this is one of my favorite times in the cellar. There's a lot to be grateful for. Certainly we had a stellar vintage, which is always rewarding. The business is doing well - thanks primarily to you all. We seem to have a bright future - thanks primarily to my family. They started on what would be considered a relatively challenging endeavor with me, and have put in so much work, time, and love into Capstone. As you know Francis and Rose have had wines made in honor of their hard work. However, there is an unsung hero whose wine has yet to be released and whose help with everything I’m very thankful for. Lucienne is a blend of 54% Chenin Blanc, 29% Sauvignon Blanc, and 17% Roussanne. My daughter, Lucy, worked on this special blend with me. In fact, we were down to two blends out of seven and Lucy picked the one she liked the most. We are releasing it this weekend - just in time for Thanksgiving! The 2024 red blending is just beginning. Right now it’s just a matter of tasting through a lot of barrels, pulling samples and sketching out some preliminary blends. Then we get a bit more formal by bringing in some trusted pallets for a couple weeks of tasting and blending sessions - certainly one of the more fun parts of the job. The reds from 24’ are really good. They have lost some of their nerve after 12 months in barrel and are showing wonderful dark, ripe fruit characters with supple tannin. You will start seeing this released in the Spring 2026. The cider is kind of like the last hurrah for the vintage. The apple guys were hard hit with a spring frost and lost most of their Hewes Crab, so the one change to this years blend is swapping Harrison for Hewes. We still have the Gold Rush, Winesap, Arkansas Black and Black Twig. In fact the last two and still hanging on the trees - that's all we’re waiting on. They say cider apples aren’t ripe until they’re on the ground. As we come into this season of gratitude and giving, I wanted to make sure to express my and my families thanks to you all. We are forever grateful for your friendship and support. Please pay a visit, and be on the look out for some special releases and an exciting wine club announcement. Cheers to a fruitful harvest and a Happy Thanksgiving!
As Fall draws to a close and the Holiday season begins, we would like to announce the Q4 wine club allotment…2 bottles of our 2024 Sparkling C² and 1 bottle of our 2023 Cabernet Franc, a perfect toast for all the celebrations to come! We will be charging cards on file this Wednesday, October 29th . Wines will be ready for pick up starting Thursday. If you need to update any of your information, please click the button below to login to your Capstone Account. Many of you have been asking about the Cider - we’re waiting on the Arkansas Black and Black Twig apples to fall, but should have this available again by Christmas! We just finished pressing off the last of the reds - Petit Verdot. Certainly, last but not least. The reds have impressed me as much as the whites. What a stunning vintage. The wines are refined and elegant - a contrast to the large, dense wines from 2023 and 2024. A more detailed update to come shortly. We hope to see you all soon. We are so grateful for your support of CV.
Mother Nature certainly has a way of keeping us on our toes. In my last update, I shared some skepticism about this vintage after a frosty early spring, heavy summer rains, and the return of the Spotted Lantern Fly. But the tide has turned — we’ve had a stellar end of summer and ripening period, and the vintage seems to have done a complete 180 (knocking on wood as I say that). Our white and rosé fruit is already in the cellar and fermenting away. One of my favorite smells in the winery is newly fermenting juice, and the wines coming out of tank right now show incredible acidity, concentration, balance, and length. Once fermentation wraps up, that’s when the tasting, talking, and decision-making begin. Much of the science of winemaking happens between harvest and the end of fermentation. But the artistry comes after: choosing whether a wine moves into another tank, a barrel (and if so, which type of oak), or even clay; deciding how much lees (the dead yeast) to incorporate during aging; weighing whether the wine stands on its own or might benefit from blending; determining how often to stir the lees to build texture. These decisions shape the style and soul of the final wine. I was slightly nervous pressing our Cabernet Franc for our first Blanc de Franc — the juice came off a bit more pink than I’d hoped. Fortunately, yeast can leach color during fermentation, and so far it looks like we may end up with the true white Cabernet Franc I envisioned. We picked the remainder of our Cabernet Franc for red wine last Friday and processed it at the new facility I designed at Reitano Vineyards, just 20 minutes from Capstone. The fruit came in clean and ripe, and the new equipment worked beautifully—some late-season wins all around. Our Cabernet Sauvignon might actually be a blockbuster this year — something that almost never happens. I honestly can’t tell you the last time I let fruit hang into October, but based on current forecasts we will ride this nice stretch out and perhaps start picking again in a week or two. Yields are down about 30%, but quality looks poised to surpass 2024. It would take divine intervention to match the 2023 vintage, but if 2025 has taught us anything, it’s that nothing’s certain until the fruit is in. Changing gears - We’re so incredibly grateful for our Wine Club members and are excited to announce an all-day Harvest Winemaker’s Party , featuring CJ’s Western BBQ and live Bluegrass music. We are staying open late. Let’s celebrate! October 18th Capstone Vineyard Harvest Party (12pm–8pm) : Open to everyone! We’ll have live bluegrass music, plenty of food, and of course, great wine. This will be a fun, relaxed day and a perfect chance to catch up, enjoy some music, and hear more about harvest and all the happenings at Capstone. We look forward to seeing you soon and sharing this exciting season with you.
Well, it’s certainly been an interesting growing season. A cool, wet spring delayed bud break and stunted shoot growth, and early sightings of Spotted Lantern Fly raised concern of another pest-filled harvest. On top of that, we’ve been warned about an especially severe hurricane season. Thankfully, we’ve only had a couple of flood watches — one lasting 25 days and another for 30. It’s times like these when the importance of site selection really shows. Despite intense downpours and prolonged wetting periods, our vineyard drains remarkably well. Water quickly filters through the rocky soils and runs off the hillside, ensuring the vines never sit saturated for too long. In fact, all this rain has been a bit of a blessing. Our two acres of new plantings look like they’re on steroids, and the mature vines haven’t looked this vibrant in years — a welcome sight after two dry seasons. Our aquifers are also finally replenished! This vintage is looking a little suspect for red wines — but no worries there. We’re well-stocked with exceptional reds from the last two vintages. We keep running out of white, sparkling and rosé so I had already planned to lean into those wines this year. Keep your eyes out for something special: a white Cabernet Franc, or as we like to call it, Blanc de Franc! We recently bottled our Lucienne and Roussanne — both are stunning wines. Up next is our final bottling before harvest: Sparkling C2. Yep, it’s back! This year’s blend is 93% Chardonnay and 7% Chenin Blanc (most of the Chenin went into the Lucienne blend). For our Q3 wine club allocation , you’ll be receiving Francis, St. Dominic, and Roussanne. We’ll be running cards on file Wednesday, July 30th , and wines will be available for pickup starting Thursday, July 31st . If you need to update your information, please email us at info@capstonevineyards.com . And finally, we have a new face behind that email — Anita, our new tasting room manager. She brings a strong hospitality background, is very engaging and a joy to be around. Jess left some big shoes to fill, and Anita is already stepping in with grace and enthusiasm. Come by to pick up your wines, bring a picnic, and say hello!
As we step into the heart of winter, it’s exciting to imagine what the season might bring. After several mild, low-precipitation winters, it feels like we’re due for a long, cold, and snowy stretch—and the Farmer’s Almanac seems to agree.
I’m writing this after a brisk walk up the mountain, prompted by an unexpected adventure: I got the tractor stuck at the bottom of the property clearing snow. While our tracked tractors are fantastic for preventing soil erosion, reducing compaction, and gripping well in the vineyard, they’re not exactly ideal for navigating snow and ice. Going downhill? No problem. Getting back up? That’s another story entirely!
We’re thrilled to be kicking off our third year operating Capstone. The first two years have been an incredible learning journey, helping us lay a strong foundation to build upon.
2025 promises to be an exciting and pivotal year as we continue to push boundaries and grow. We’re preparing to finance, build, and equip a state-of-the-art production facility, spread 6
As the weather cools down, things are heating up in the cellar and tasting room!
First off, a big thank you to Big Whisky Beef Co, Cottonwood Ranch, and Cypress Street Coffee Roasters for making the ‘Cattle Battle’ such a success. We’re thrilled by the enthusiasm for these events and will be hosting more in the future—keep an eye out for dates, and be sure to grab your tickets quickly; they sold out in less than 48 hours!
I’m excited to announce our next culinary showdown, the ‘Coq Fight’ in January, featuring two poultry farms battling it out. In the Spring, we’ll host ‘Of Swine and Wine’ , Summer will be a ‘Garden Party’ for our vegetarian friends, and many more delicious events to come.
Join us this Sunday, November 3rd, for our third Sparkling Sunday! Enjoy sweet and savory pastries from Melania’s Bakery, mimosas, and live music by John Lamirande, a retired Army musician with an impressive 27-year career. It’s the perfect way to relax before Veteran’s Day weekend.
From November 7th to 11th, we invite
Happy Harvest, Everyone!
This is one of the more rewarding times of the year as we focus our attention on picking grapes and making wine. These two aspects are why many of us get into the industry - sales are typically an afterthought.
Wine grape harvest is exciting in whatever region of the world you may be, but Virginia has some unique qualities that define our terroir. The biggest factor is nature and how wildly different each vintage is. Precipitation, temperature extremes, invasive and noninvasive species have eliminated the term “normal growing season” from our repertoire. This is why growers and winemakers in VA are some of the finest in the world as there is no room for complacency. The seasonal challenges we experience force us to adapt our practices, decisions and style each year, but our focus on quality fruit and wine production never waiver.
We finished picking this past Sunday! The wines coming out of fermentor are absolutely delicious. We were blessed with another high quality and slightly
Hello Everyone, I hope this email finds you all well. This has been a very fast-paced Spring here at the vineyard. Bud break was very uniform between the varietals. Watching the shoot growth after bud break was reminiscent of a horse taking off out of the gate - the vines look like they were taking steroids in the off-season! Certainly, all this wet weather has helped with the development, which is fine this time of year, but we hope the rain starts to go away over the next couple of weeks before bloom. Commercial grape vines are hermaphroditic, so they don’t rely on bees or other pollinators to fertilize the fruit. Rather, each berry will push a small cap off with 5 anthers, once that cap falls the fruit is fertilized and we have fruit set. During bloom, which should take place in a couple of weeks, we hope for calm weather with no rain in order to facilitate this process. Once we have the fruit set we will go through and start counting the clusters to get a potential yield estimate for the vineyard. So far everything looks quite healthy in the vineyard, but it is still early in the season. The only cause for concern at this stage is the number of Spotted Lantern Fly (SLF) nymphs we are seeing. The nymphs are not harmful to the vine, however, the adults will feed on the vascular system of the vine and if in great enough numbers, they could literally suck the life out of the vine - new plantings are particularly susceptible. This is one reason I held off on planting this year, hoping these little buggers will continue to migrate South. In the Spring of 2025, we will start planting more of what we already have and add new acreage of Albariño and Gruner Veltliner. The only other change is ripping out the infernal Muscat Ottonell. So, if you like this style of wine you’re only chance to buy our first and last iteration will be from 2023. We finished our first round of bottling from the 2023 vintage: Sauvignon Blanc, Roussanne, Chardonnay, and Muscat. I wish we had a lot more of the wines but the 2023 vintage did not yield large quantities, however, the quality is through the roof. We are seeing a lot more traffic through the tasting room and increased sales this year so I had to pull several wines from the tasting menu. Our 2022 C2, 2023 Roussanne, and 2022 Vintners Blend are now club wines and only available by the bottle. Given how busy we have been on the weekends we decided to start opening from Thursday - Monday to help spread out the flow a bit. As always, thank you for your support and we look forward to seeing you soon.