Summer Sipping: Warm Weather Wines from Barboursville, Virginia

The ruins of Barboursville Mansion/ Photograph: David Hammond

Earlier than the pandemic, we had simply visited Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello, the place the third President had tried, not at all times efficiently, to develop grapes and produce wine. Jefferson had employed an Italian winemaker to assist make his wine, and issues have been wanting up proper because the Revolutionary Conflict intervened. After the conflict, Jefferson tried once more to make good wine, however phylloxera, the native insect pest, killed lots of his European vines.

As unsuccessful as he was as a winemaker, Jefferson did higher as an architect, and along with his personal Monticello, he designed a mansion for James Barbour, governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia. Barbour’s stately manse burned, though the outlines of the previous constructing are nonetheless standing, and whereas they’re spectacular,= the primary cause we visited Barboursville was for the wine.

Virginia has produced wine for hundreds of years, and though the Commonwealth is within the prime ten wine producers in the USA, the wines of Virginia account for less than one percent of the wine produced in this country; evaluate that to California, which produces over eighty % of U.S. wine.

Though Virginia has a protracted solution to go to method California’s stage of manufacturing, the truth that it’s an “rising” wine area means there are values on the market. Napa wines are, notoriously, too damn expensive; wines from Virginia, which have but to achieve the cachet loved by California wines, are nonetheless moderately priced, and there are plenty of excellent Virginia wines.

Final summer season we tried a bottle of the Barboursville Vineyard’s Vermentino. It blew us away. This white wine is ideal for the hotter months; gentle, however with jaw-dropping dimension and minerality; it encourages contemplation and it’s a lot greater than a senseless summer season quaff. Dry and crisp, it’s wonderful with crab and different seafood, and has an nearly flowery nostril, very nice on a heat summer season night time. Barboursville winemaker Luca Paschina tells me that “I used to drink Vermentino with my father once I was youthful. The Vermentino grape is renown in Liguria for producing very aromatic and refreshing wine, and the grape favors a heat, sizzling local weather, which is why I planted it right here in Barboursville.” After one bottle, I instantly ordered a case from Wine.com, the place delivery turned out to be free and price per bottle got here to solely about $20, a very good worth. It’s most likely greatest, although, to order immediately from the Barboursville Vineyards as a result of, as with most food and drinks supply providers, the maker of meals or drink loses income if a third-party brings the products to your door.

Vermentiino/Photograph: David Hammond

Barboursville Vermentino was chosen as considered one of twelve 2020 and 2021 Virginia Governor’s Cup Case Wines. Governor’s Cup wines are made at Virginia wineries and are licensed to be comprised of one hundred-percent Virginia fruit. A panel of sixteen judges pattern over 5 hundred wines and choose the twelve greatest for the case. This yr, the Vermentino was, once more, one of many Barboursville wines that made the ultimate twelve included within the Governor’s Cup case. The opposite two wines that have been chosen are the Octagon and the Paxxito.

The 2016 Octagon is pleasantly gentle, made principally of Merlot (forty-six %), together with Cabernet Franc (thirty-eight %) and Petit Verdot (sixteen %); all these grapes, Paschina tells us, do very nicely in Virginia’s clay-heavy soil. Octagon, named after the Jefferson-designed octagonal chamber within the Barbour mansion, exhibits plenty of vibrant crimson fruit, spice and tannins, which suggests a couple of years of ageing will repay—proper now, says Paschina, “it’s a bit shy.” A bottle of Octagon is available in round $55, which is an inexpensive worth for a wine that will get a ninety ranking from Robert Parker’s “Wine Advocate,” the place the wine is described as “a phenomenal expression of fruit and pungent aromatics. It additionally has a extra rounded really feel to it than some high-end Virginia wines. That’s to not say that there isn’t any energy—there may be lots. Nonetheless, a Barboursville trademark is the power to appear full and completely balanced whereas nonetheless ageing nicely. All that mentioned, that is hardly able to drink; it does want a few years of cellaring to return into even higher steadiness and present extra expressive fruit. It ought to actually do each.” We couldn’t wait; we loved Octagon with a phenomenal grilled ribeye, and it will pair nicely with a lot of what we eat throughout a summer season barbecue.

Summer season night/Photograph: David Hammond

The massive #1 winner of the Governor’s Cup was one other Barboursville wine, the 2015 Paxxito. It is a dessert wine with eye-opening dimension: sweetness is only one component of the sip, and the sugars are nicely balanced with acidity, so the wine is under no circumstances cloying. Paxxito is made via a conventional strategy of drying and raisinizing the grapes for 100 days or extra, whereas they proceed to ripen and the sugars improve; when the sugar focus reaches the specified stage, 41 Brix, the raisins are crushed, rehydrated, fermented after which barreled for as much as two years. Says Paschina, “The method of raisinizing concentrates the flavors in a grape cluster by 4 instances,” which can account for the degrees of taste in a glass of Paxxito. The consequence is an ideal wine for starters like pate or a chocolatey dessert; at $60, that is additionally an exceptionally good worth for such a superb wine. For warm-weather sipping, we combine the Paxxito with a lightweight spritz of seltzer.

Simply as Jefferson introduced over an Italian winemaker to assist him at Monticello, the Barboursville Vineyards introduced over Paschina from Torino to assist coax the very best wine from grapes grown in Virginia. For the Paxxito, Paschina advised us he has racks of grapes drying out: “we discover it higher to let the grapes dry naturally, not as a result of naturally is essentially higher, however as a result of letting the grapes dry slowly has traditionally confirmed to be a very good methodology, and it will get us the outcomes we wish. These aromas within the grapes, you would not launch them in the event that they have been dehydrated too rapidly. As with the Parmigiano Reggiano cheese, it takes months for the cheeses to launch water, for the flavors to pay attention, and for the cheese to turn out to be so intense and delightful.”

Wines from Barboursville Winery may be discovered round Chicago at many eating places and wine shops, together with Roka Akor, Shaw’s Crab House, and newly minted Michelin two-star, Ever. It’s also possible to decide up bottles to go from House of Glunz (Chicago’s solely nineteenth-century liquor retailer, deserves a go to). This yr, we ordered one other case of Barboursville Vermentino, direct from the winery, and it was about the identical worth as we paid via Wine.com… however the winery will get extra of a reduce.