April 2018 – Virginia Wine Time

On Good Friday I had the chance to visit the Walsh Family Wine in Loudoun County to tour the vineyards, taste some wines and hear what’s going on from Nate Walsh.

I met our wine friends Kurt and Carol from Wine About Virginia on a very windy hill at Walsh Family Vineyards. We made plans to meet up with our wine friend Susan McHenry. She was running late. We said our hellos and followed Nate Walsh out to the vineyards. The site we visited is known as Bethany Ridge. Nate told us there are 20 acres planted with Albarino, Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay, Viognier, Petit Manseng, (and a teeny bit of Gruner Veltliner), Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon, Petit Verdot and Tannat.

Nate told us of another vineyard not far away called Twin Notch Farm. This site has 8 acres planted with Sauvignon Blanc, Petit Manseng, Merlot, Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot.

Nate talked about the recent deal with Northgate Vineyards. He will be making the wine there and keeping the winery running since Mark and Vicki Fedor have decided to move on to their next chapter. He plans to keep things the same and maybe eventually have Walsh Family Wines involved in some way.

After our vineyard tour and talk, we joined others at the picnic tables to taste some wines. We were able to taste the 2017 Sauvignon Blanc, 2017 Rosé, the 2016 Viognier and finally a red blend created from tannat and cab sauvignon that was blended for the Tarara wine club. All of the wines were very good and I favored the 2017 Sauvignon Blanc and the 2017 Rosé.

After tasting the wines and chatting more with Nate, it was time to buy some wines and head home. We hope to see more of Nate soon at Northgate and we look forward to tasting the wines he creates. If you visit Walsh Family Wine or see Nate, tell them Virginia Wine Time sent you!

Seven years ago we attended the groundbreaking event for Big Cork Vineyards. We had not been back since then. After the most recent snow we made plans to visit and were so glad we finally made it back to Big Cork Vineyards.

Randy Thompson and Dave Collins have certainly created an amazing experience at Big Cork Vineyards. While they made almost two dozen different wines, the tasting menu is tastefully limited to six nice choices. We thoroughly enjoyed the wine tasting at the expansive tasting bar. We particularly enjoyed the 2017 Sauvignon Blanc and the 2015 Nebbiolo. We were very impressed with the wines crafted by Dave Collins. We were already familiar with his work because of our membership at Breaux Vineyards where Dave was the winemaker for 14 years. We wanted to try the 2016 Reserve Chardonnay but it was only available to club members. I was very curious about the 2016 Reserve Chardonnay that I decided to join the club so that we could enjoy the chardonnay with some lunch items.

After our tasting we crossed the tasting room to the market area. We selected some items for lunch and picked up the bottle of the 2016 Reserve Chardonnay. It was everything we had hoped it would be. And it paired well with our lunch items. In the market area there is a comfortable seating area. There is also a covered patio area for warmer times. The day we were there they had live music out on the patio. The patio has wonderful views of the vineyards.

Before leaving we picked up our club wines and purchased a few more. We do plan to return to Big Cork Vineyards but sooner than seven years. If you happen to visit Big Cork Vineyards in Maryland, please tell them Virginia Wine Time sent you!