Slow

It has been a long while since we last wrote, and to be honest, we’ve felt a need for silence over much of the last year. I think maybe it’s just super hard to talk when you have a lump in your throat, you know? But there really is so much to catch up on.

Thank You. Sincerely.
This fall we released our first wine, the 2018 “Manteo-Nason” red blend, and you all received it with such warmth and enthusiasm that we were a bit taken aback. Thank you. We are proud of that wine, and think it’s great tasting, but we love that the majority of folks who took a chance on it had no idea how it tasted. You all saw people who were farming their hearts out, and you took a chance that the wine would taste good — or you just wanted to support our dreams, hard work, and ambition. Either way, you made our decade and inspired us to press forward with redoubled enthusiasm.

When It Damn Well Feels Like It
The 2019 vintage has been in a bottle for a few months now, and we think it’s a stunner — an aromatic, rich, concentrated and endlessly structured wine, emblematic of the uninterrupted dry and warm weather that stretched from July through October. But here’s the catch: it needs time to age. 

The Here and Now
So far, 2021 has been a leisurely stroll, with a late bud break, no hard frosts, and cool dry weather punctuated by the occasional 3-day heat wave and/or thunderstorm. The vines have caught up from their slow start, and have surged into June. Bloom started out scary, with rainy weather forecasted, but we snagged a handful of dry, bright and warm days right when it was most needed. All told, it looks like the vines will set an ample crop. From June through early July our team will up the intensity of our labors, touching every vine many times, tending the canopy, and keeping the new clusters bathed in light and air. This is the time for focus.

Inside the canopy: this year’s crop getting a little sunbath at the beginning stages of bloom.

In the Meantime
There are big plantings, and there are big ideas, and there are  small plantings when you have … big ideas. We did all three this year.

The big planting of Cabernet Sauvignon planned for this spring went off without a hitch. The Sammy Smith Vineyard is now a reality: 2/3 of an acre of rocky, tractor clenching slopes just a 50 yard walk through the woods from our original vineyard site. This site really is something else, and while literally only a stone’s throw away, it is more geologically diverse than our existing blocks, and has some wicked winds blowing through it. Just the kind of place we wanted to explore the big idea that seized us in 2018: focus on understanding the potential of Cabernet Sauvignon with a diversity of clones on a range of unique but related hillside soils: we’ll pour you a sip in 2026.

The  small planting we made this year was Petit Manseng.  We love some of the Petit Manseng wines coming out of Virginia and wanted to see how it responds to our site. So in a few years, we will see how it deals with the late frosts and early heat waves, and we’ll fiddle around with some experimental wines. With a little luck and a lot of intention, we’ll have something interesting to share.

Impermanence, Acceptance, and Forever (and that’s a mighty long time)
Whether it’s a new big planting, a new small planting, or tasting the first wine from a recent planting, putting new vines in the ground is a heady and humbling experience. On an uncultivated plot of land, the journey from concept to commercial red wine release is a 7-year process (at minimum), so patience is a must.  Planting is also an acceptance of the impermanence of our existence, in that the grapes and wine from this plot will most certainly outlive us if we farm them right — they’ve already outlived some of our family, and friends (both 2 and 4 legged). We’ve only got one go at this, and we’re going to make the most of it. Thanks for sharing this journey with us.

A Hole in the Ground

About 18 months ago, we cleared an acre of land on David's half (now the Sammy Smith Vineyard) of our 18 acre compound.  We found barbed-wire on the perimeter and surmised that this land was once used for grazing.  Over the last 50-100 years, it has been left to re-wild.  Over time, we have learned that we can minimize soil disturbance and compaction if we forego "grading", and simply knock down trees and use a "box-leveler" to drag the loose soil and rock to achieve a rough level.  After a few years of random foot traffic and lawn mowing, this somewhat lumpy surface slowly transforms to level.

Free-hand drawing of free-hand soil profile restoration.

Filling Holes
The majority of trees on this steep, rocky plot were roughly arm-sized in thickness.  However, there were three large oaks that left sizeable craters when they were cleared.  The craters were not deep, as they are over the part of ground where natural bedrock resides just a couple feet below the soil surface, but they’re too big for our standard laissez-faire approach. Left un-filled they will collect water, causing damp, muddy conditions and small patches of vines with ultra-vigorous growth. We could erase the craters by levelling the surface of the vineyard, but we would then be churning the soil over a large part of the block in order to improve the surface level for 20 or 30 vines. The alternative is to amend these root holes by hand, with our best approximation of the natural structure that we find in the rest of the slope: a mixture of small rock fragments, quartz boulderlings, loamy soil and flat chunks of slate and schist. Done by hand it’s somewhat time consuming, but not overly strenuous, and in the end we create a better environment for our vines by mimicking the soil found throughout the new vineyard site.

Wine Release: 2018 Mount Alto “Manteo-Nason”

Friends! We are super excited to announce the release of our first vintage, the 2018 "Manteo-Nason", a red blend composed of 91% Cabernet Sauvignon and 9% Petit Verdot. This wine is named after the Manteo and Nason silt loams, two soils that are found on the hill-slopes of Mount Alto. In a rainy vintage like 2018, soils determine red wine quality, and this wine tells us that we are farming a very special piece of the earth.  It's a medium bodied, aromatic wine that begs to be paired with a meal, and will reward you if you can muster the patience to drink it slowly over a couple of hours.  

Because of the extremely limited quantity in this release, purchases are limited to 3 bottles per customer, at a cost of $30 per bottle.  We offer curbside pickup at Mount Alto (see dates below), free home delivery in the greater Richmond and Charlottesville areas, and mail order in Virginia and DC (see below).  Since we can only ship to folks in Virginia and DC -- friends who are in other states, can reach out via email or phone to find out about getting an allocation set aside.

Curbside Pick-Up at Mount Alto
We will be at the vineyard from 10:00am to 12:00 noon on most Saturdays from now till the New Year. Please call or text us ahead of time at (804) 476-0883 and we will be looking for you. Click here for dates and directions.

Free Delivery in Albemarle and Richmond Areas
Please call us at (804) 476-0883 to place your order and arrange for delivery. Our goal is to do all deliveries within a week of purchase.

Mail Order
Customers in Virginia and DC can purchase a 3-pack for $110 which includes all tax and shipping costs. Please call us at (804) 476-0883 to place your order. 

Waiting for the Rain

Oh that fall light when the sun is out... cabernet sauvignon trying to soak up the last rays of this sunny and salubrious stretch of days. This vintage has been, in a word, tantalizing.

The back story: We prize wines with tannins that are both ever-present, yet barely perceptible. By that we mean the kind of wine in which tannin is not noticeable at first sip, but by the halfway point of your first glass the tannins have created a lingering presence that provides a subtle exclamation point to every sip, and every bite of food. In a word: subtle. After veraison we walk the vineyard at least weekly, tasting berries as we go, and excellent tannins have been a defining feature of both skins and seeds since late August. We don't know if is because of the unusually cool temps, vine age, or the culmination of incremental improvements in farming, but the tannins we desire there. But the cool temperatures have kept acids so high, and maturation so slow, we have found ourselves in a seemingly interminable waiting game. If we harvest with too much acid we fear the acid will obscure the other aspects of the wine, and that too thick skins will be reluctant to give up their tannins. So we wait. This last week has been cool and sunny, our canopy is in fantastic shape, little green solar panels collecting energy for incremental steps in maturation - depth of flavor has increased with every day. So we are opting to wait through this hurricane, to try and reap the sunny and mild days forecasted to begin this Tuesday and persist through the next weekend. No "split picks", we're keeping all our berries in a single basket. In the end we may not reach the goal of tannin/acid balance, and end up making rosé (hopefully the best damn rosé imaginable). We may find ourselves picking in the middle of the storm because we miscalculate the resiliency left in the berry skins. Or we'll nail it, but in truth we simply have no idea what will happen. Wish us luck!

A Lonely Time, Rebirth

We’re still working together here at Mount Alto, but maintaining 6’ distances, pruning a row apart, walking on opposite sides of the path. It’s an odd mixture for us, we share the fears and sadness that our society is grappling with now in the COVID-19 experience, but we are also smack dab in the middle of something joyous. “Bud swell” signals the annual rebirth of the vines, we are staking out the rows for 600 new vines next month and we have the thrill of uncovering the new clearing for our large 2021 planting. We look around and see that many of our friends are turning to growing, cooking and concocting as a source of inspiration and comfort right now — the same is true for us. This place, and our work here is always a refuge, a source of inspiration, and now more acutely than ever. Stay well.

Planting More Vines

David and I have spent the last couple of years planning to dramatically expand our vineyard production capacity. During spring 2020 and 2021 those plans will be underway, tripling our planted area with a selection of vines that, we hope, will produce wine that expresses the full potential of our terroir.

Forest Daffs: We stumbled upon a couple of little patches of daffodils growing about 300 feet into the forest which is being cleared for our 2021 planting. We relocated then to a little spot behind the cabin.

The Diversity of Cabernet Sauvignon
In 2014 we began this adventure by planting a small block of Cabernet Sauvignon, added a test planting of Petit Verdot, and a little more Cabernet in the intervening years. For this next phase we considered many varieties: Cabernet Franc, Merlot, Nebbiolo, and Petit Manseng, to name a few. Expansion planting is serious business, as the vines we plant can be here 30 years or more. To inform that decision involves a lot of reading, consultation with experts, and a lot of tasting — and trust me when I say we threw ourselves into the task of tasting with full-throated commitment. In the end we came back to the decision to make the 2020-2021 expansion composed almost entirely of Cabernet Sauvignon.

Morphology

Fruit Chemistry

Focus & Diversity
This strategy will mean that, of our total productive capacity, over 90% will be Cabernet, a grape considered by many to be marginal in the eastern U.S. Some might say this is a strategy that is profoundly lacking in diversity, and that it runs contrary to the practices of many successful farm winery operations in these parts. Hell, someday we might even say that ourselves! We don’t even have an opinion as to whether Cab Sauv should ultimately be the star or supporting cast of our blend. So why are we doing this? Primarily, two simple realizations of where we were in our own minds (and journey) came clear to us:

1. We are simply thrilled with the results of Cabernet Sauvignon on Mount Alto, we think that it can not only be “better than marginal”, we think it can excel.

2. We want to fully understand what is possible within this single variety given various clones, rootstocks, pruning and differing soils.

Thus, new Cab clones on new rootstocks is our gambit. The options we have selected (blocks of clones 15, 61, and 412) promise diversity in flavors, aromatics, body, tannins, acid levels, and productivity to add to our existing blocks of clones 169 and 191. From a practical standpoint, the new clones and rootstock should also provide us with a slightly staggered ripening window, which can help hedge against the varying fortunes of weather and ease harvest-time logistics.

Ambition
We hope that bringing in this diversity will help us to create, in David’s words, "a wine that keeps evolving beautifully in the glass for 3 hours or more”. Yes, we know this is ambitious! But this is the kind of wine that we want to drink, so why shouldn’t we try to grow it? We will see how far we can go with Cabernet as our backbone, blended judiciously with Petit Verdot.

In the end, when we acknowleged that simple curiosity is what drives David and myself, this narrow focus was the only choice we could make. At some point we’ll likely add some other red grapes into the mix, and we are adding a small patch of Petit Manseng for purely experimental purposes. But for the time being, the beautiful puzzle of Cabernet Sauvignon is simply irresistible to us.

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2019: A Vintage (Un)Like Any Other

Much could be said about the weather in 2019: with drought conditions beginning in late June, intermittent rains in August, and virtually no rainfall from September through harvest and into October. An atypically dry Virginian summer to say the least, and as grape vines became low maintenance in absence of rain, the livin’ and farmin’ was easy. The pre-harvest work entailed walking the rows, tasting berries and coordinating picking schedules with the neighbors so we could lighten our collective load.

Petit Verdot in late August.

But the restless heart can always find something to fret about, and so we worried about the late September heat wave, which precipitated berry shrivel in some vines, and determined the harvest as it pushed some fragile berries (and fragile emotions) over the edge, necessitating a decision to pick a la minute.

As I walked the rows, tasting berries pre-harvest, I was struck by the fine-grained quality of the tannins, creating an almost spicy effect on my tongue in that the tannic sensations accumulated over 10-15 minutes of sampling. Post-harvest, David related that these tannins created a “cloud like TV screen fuzz” over the flavors during fermentation, obscuring other aspects of the newborn Cabernet Sauvignon — meaning that we will have to be patient (months and years) and wait till the tannins settle to experience the lovely fruit underneath.

Cabernet Sauvignon going from the destemmer into barrels to begin fermentation.

Our Terroir (Lions, Tigers, Bears, Bees, Birds)
Mount Alto is a largely wild place, mostly forested with only a smattering of pasture, a scattering of houses and two small vineyards. In 2019, the pressure from wildlife was the greatest we’ve seen, featuring an intense battle with the local deer over our sovereignty. The battle resulted in a what I’d like to characterize as a draw — we got to make a couple barrels of wine, and they got a healthy share of this year’s crop, and perhaps some much needed moisture in the process. Question: Can a deer jump an 8 foot fence? Answer: I do not know, but I can assure you that they can jump through a 6 inch hole located 4 feet above the ground because I saw them do it with my own two eyes. Our neighbors the O’Briens from up the hill had a bear that went … wait for it … over the fence and made off with some rather fine Petit Verdot. In addition to drought, recent clearing of a parcel of about 100 acres of forested land may have played a role, forcing deer onto adjacent properties in search of food and shelter.

Bee Sign
The bees also forced our hand at harvest time, beginning to hammer at the ripest berries as their skins softened just enough to allow them to be pierced by their dainty probosci. In two of the 3 three vintages that we have experienced here, bee pressure (yellowjackets to be precise) has provided some irritation. We watch them reduce our harvest — nearly every cluster loses a berry or five ( a 5% loss or even more?), and we watch these losses mount as we wait endlessly for ripeness levels to increase. My esoteric side asks if maybe they’re telling us something, maybe the wait is over and ripeness is sufficient? We haven’t bought fully into this notion, but their constant reminders (and poaching) no doubt factor into when we decide to pick. Perhaps some year, when our yield is sufficient to do multiple batches, we’ll do a “bee sign” harvest to, ahem, see what the buzz is all about.

Biodiversity
Though they reduce our yields, and create a hazard for uncovered hands, the buzz of four species of bees (by my untrained count), criss-crossing spider webs, and myriad butterflies and other insects that accompanied our harvest makes me feel like we are doing something right. If nothing else, biodiversity has thus far persisted, and we intend to continue to be a humble, rather than dominant, part of it. We do have to strike a balance, but there can be no economical balance without an ecological balance, so we will continue to get better at living within, rather than trying to change, these parameters.

The “free run” Cabernet Sauvignon on the right, the “press juice” on the left. David shot this as he was transferring the 2019 to barrel.

Next Steps
All this is to say that while some things were different, many things stayed the same in 2019. Our mountain is in a bit of flux with the timber harvest, and our climate may too be in flux with summer heatwaves extending later. We are observing, learning, and expanding ever so slowly and we are eager to continue stewarding our small part of this mountain.

It is November as I write this, and we have already begun the soil work that marks the official start of the 2020 vintage. All the 2019 wines are safely tucked into the cellar, and we will need to be patient to see how they evolve in the coming months and years, but we are super excited about our early impressions. We anticipate a release of the 2018 vintage may occur as early as next year (2020) and can’t wait to share it. If you’re not already on our mailing list and want to be notified, you can sign up here. Thanks for taking the time — hope your fall is warm.

Cousins

Both Cabernet Sauvignon and Petit Verdot made a name for themselves in the Bordeaux region of France, and while lacking a close genetic relationship, they are both considered a member of the "Carmenet eco-geogroup" (thanks Jancis Robinson). Petit Verdot, or PV as we refer to it, is a somewhat fickle variety in France, ripening inconsistently and late in the season. In Virginia it has proven to be a consistently ripening, high sugar, powerhouse of a wine grape -- an interesting example of a plant that found its true niche in a place far from it's point of origin. On Mount Alto, it has shown its own unique attributes, and despite its reputation as a late ripener, this vintage it may be ready 2-3 weeks in advance of the Cabernet Sauvignon. As a result, we will kick off harvest in 2019 with the PV, and for the first time ferment the PV separate from the Cabernet.

It's not clear at the time if the difference in ripening is due to genetic differences between the grapevines, vine age, or soil differences, but our current Cab and PV soils are distinct. When we first planted our vineyard we were given the advice that Cabernet should go in the rocky dry soil, and the PV was less particular, and could tolerate (maybe even preferred) a little bit more water than is optimal for other varieties. So we planted our PV in a section of our vineyard with a little bit more clay. Our neighbors up the hill also have their PV planted in a little heavier clay soil. Both plots of PV are ripening sooner, with the “clayeyest” sections within the PV blocks ripening even earlier. So there you have it — anecdotal exhibit A.

We may pull the trigger on harvest as early as this coming Saturday, especially if hurricane Dorian forces our hand. The PV, whatever the reasons, is positively lovely this vintage.

3rd leaf Petit Verdot on Mount Alto.

1,000 Meters

We have had the good fortune to strike a deal to purchase about a barrels worth of Petit Verdot for this vintage from one our neighbors up the hill. This is a super exciting thing for us in terms of expanding our production, but also in terms of establishing a collaboration with another wine-grower on Mount Alto. One unexpected outcome of this collaboration is that as we tested grape chemistry today we discovered an intriguing difference: their Petit Verdot are about a week ahead of our Petit Verdot in terms of maturity. Their vineyard is located roughly 1,000 meters up hill as the crow flies, and faces east/southeast, whereas our vineyard faces west/southwest. Their vineyard is also planted to the same clone as ours. Their soils are similar to ours, but not identical, which as it turns out, matters. As a result we have to plan our harvesting strategies around this difference in maturity, picking one block a week in advance of the other.

So now, in addition to the boon of an expanded wine production, the frisson of a new relationship, and a boost in the amount of Petit Verdot that we can blend with our Cabernet Sauvignon, we also get to experience a difference. What the French would call a terroir difference. We will observe this difference. We will make wine with it!!

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The Lower 8

Our original vineyard planting has 16 rows, planted along the contour, spanning a section of soil that gets shallower and rockier as one moves down slope. The 8 rows in the rockiest, shallowest part we refer to as the “Lower 8 rows”. In our first 2 vintages we have seen a pronounced difference in vine growth habit, crop yield, berry color, and taste difference here. These taste differences have us excited.  The yields in the Lower 8 are 30 to 40% less than the yields in the upper eight rows. Though no farmer wants to have lower yield, beyond the flavor differences, there is one immediate compensation: the foliage growth is so much slower in these vines that they require much less management. We do less shoot thinning, less hedging and less leaf pulling. While we really don't have any large sections in our vineyard on vigorous heavy clay soil's, there are a few pockets where the soil is a little deeper and richer and when working with those vines it can feel like a wrestling match. In the lower 8 it's more like a dance.

Moving Forward

I'm sure as we become more sophisticated farmers we may find ways to improve that yield, even though we avoid chemical fertilizers and irrigation, things we know can boost yield, but which also are thought to limit the expression of land in the fruit and wine (aka terroir). But in reality, we are not too focused on yield, rather, we want balance: limited external inputs and exports of chemical/sediment/nutrients (pollution), and we want to let the vines grow optimally, and to harvest their best fruit.

One technique which we ARE beginning to explore is increasing "planting density". Our original planting had a vine every 4 feet, but when we expanded the lower eight rows last year we planted one vine every 3 feet. European growers use this technique quite a bit, as do some of the cutting edge growers in Virginia.

We will see what happens. We will make wine from what happens.