Frost Scare for Loudoun Wineries

This weekend, I was out at Breaux and snapped a shot of leaves starting to appear on the vines. The vines have been trimmed back and are starting to shake off winter. Unfortunately, last night was unseasonably cold with a frost warning. Frost can be very bad for vines this early in the season (well, any time). I surveyed some of the local wineries to see how they fared:

North Gate Vineyard:

Here at North Gate, the wind stayed pretty constant all night and it helped keep the temps up. Low temp overnight here was 42 degrees. Dodged this bullet! The crops are saved!

Chrysalis Vineyard:

...we had a tiny bit of frost at the absolute lowest pastures night before last. No frost last night, with temps in the mid-30s.

No damage to vines reported.

Tarara Winery:

As for the last few nights. We have come away with zero frost or any damage. We tend to be one of the least likely for frost due to the river, but anything is still possible. So far, a great year for us.

Breaux Vineyards:

We do have a touch of bud damage in the lower parts of the vineyard but all in all things could have been a lot worse. With bud break being 7 days earlier, our risk was, of course, increased by 7 days. We believe that the damage was actually done on Saturday as the temps didn’t drop low enough last night and we didn’t actually frost last night. We believe this because frost damage doesn’t typically show immediately but rather after a few days after the tissue actually dies and because of the temps not actually dropping as low as predicted as mentioned previously. We truly consider this time around a non-issue because it was so slight and we don’t believe that the tissue actually died. We expect the buds to continue to grow right through the seemingly superficial damage. Fingers crossed for things to warm up – time to bless the vines just in case!

It seems like, thankfully, everyone escaped major damage and there is no frost in the forecast.

How well do you know Terroir?

I've talked about the concept of terroir before. Terroir is a French term that describes how environmental factors -- such as climate, soil and methods of farming -- influence grapes and create a unique, regional, signature for different grapes. This translates to the same grape often producing very different wines depending on the region.

Here is a fun little game. Below are pictures of three different vines and their surrounding soil. One is from Brane Cantenac in Bordeaux, one is from Kunde winery in Sonoma and one is from North Gate Vineyard in Loudoun County

Can you determine which one is which? Leave your answer in the comments section.

North Gate Vineyard

One of the nice things about a relatively small wine community like Loudoun County is that, for the most part, the wineries all look out for each other. The winery owners meet regularly, share ideas and help each other out. If you talk to just about any winemaker in Loudoun they'll have a story about how they've been advised by one of the other winemakers on any number of topics.

North Gate vineyard is no exception. I first heard about North Gate a year ago at Fabbioli and then again at Notaviva. Both tasting rooms carry a subset of the North Gate wines (Fabbioli has the Viognier and Notaviva the Chardonnay).

Unfortunately, North Gate does not have a tasting room yet, so while I enjoyed their wines, I was not able to get out and do a tasting. Fortunately, Mark and Vicki were kind enough to open their house during the Farm Tour this past weekend, so I got chance to see their operation and try some of the wines I haven't had a chance to try yet.

Visiting a winery during harvest is always interesting. It gives you a true sense of how the winery operates. As you can see from the pictures, they were very busy, but Mark still took the time to chat with me about the vineyard, answer my questions and show me around. Wile the sorting, fermenting and aging spaces were small they were clean and obviously well maintained and the white board with all the notes about the harvest demonstrates the amount of thought they put in to their harvest.

The wines were all good, I especially liked the Cabernet Franc. I was disappointed that I didn't get to try the Petit Verdot, maybe next time.

North Gate has a booth at several of the local Farmer's Markets, feel free to check them out there.

I am almost embarrassed to post this because it happened so long ago, but I cannot resist telling you about some great wines. Back in April, Doug hosted a release tasting at Fabbioli. The release did not just include his wines, but also wines from two other local vineyards and all three winemakers were on hand.

Each wine was paired with an item especially prepared by Chef Aaron Daniels. There were 4 wines released: Fabbioli's Cabernet Sauvignon, a mild wine with strong flavors of oak that lingers on the palette and a hint of pepper. Fabbioli also released their Black Raspberry Port. If you are thinking, "Black Raspberry Port, can that possibly be as good as it sounds and where can I get some?" It was fantastic, so good in fact that Doug sold out of his entire production run that day.

From North Gate Vineyards we were able to sample their newly released Merlot. The Merlot was barrel-aged in French oak for 18 months, creating a flavorful, complex wine with the taste of cherries and an earthy feel to it. A very excellent Merlot, on par with what most wineries would consider their reserve.

Furnace Mountain Vineyards (no website) introduced us to their 8 Chain's North Lo.Co. Vino an excellent blend of Traminette and Vidal Blanc -- I'll have more details on this wine in a future review.

A great day and a chance to enjoy some really good wines.