It was a Wine Club Weekend

It’s been a very long time since I’ve had a double wine club weekend. We have to go back pre-pandemic to when I lived in Northern Virginia and hit a two-fer at Stone Tower and Winery at La Grange. In my younger days, I could even do them in the same day. Not so anymore, sadly.

And so it was that I briefly attended the inaugural session of the Southwest Mountain Vineyards Wine Club Pickup Party. This snuck up on me a bit, but it was a perfect weekend. Although we woke up below freezing, the temperature got just up to 70 degrees. The leaf-peeping was not quite as good anymore, but the setting was gorgeous.

It was crowded too – there was a section upstairs reserved for the club pickup and then many of the other spaces were pretty full (I warned you that this was a spot you’d want to reserve in advance if you planned to check it out). I received two tickets at the door and since my guest bailed on me that meant two glasses of wine for me! I headed upstairs – they had some nice live music playing, and it didn’t overwhelm me – so there is something really well-designed about the acoustics and sound system there. Live music almost always makes it impossible for me to hear myself think (have I mentioned that I’m really old now?). I ordered a glass of the 2019 Petit Verdot and hung out on the deck to enjoy this view:

Despite a large number of people, it was comfortable. I avoid crowds as a rule (even before the pandemic) but the overall setting was very serene, even with plenty of people there.

I got a glass of the 2019 Red Blend and walked around the grounds for a bit. It’s a very well landscaped place and absolutely gorgeous. There weren’t many leaves left on the vines due to the freezes and heavy winds we had last week as the front rolled in and we returned to normally scheduled fall weather.

I think after I got my second glass, new winemaker Boela appeared at the bar upstairs, but I needed to head out and get errands done, so I didn’t get the chance to talk with him (and the bar was packed, so it would have been hard to chat).

One really great thing that has happened – Stony Point Pass has been paved, which makes it so much easier to get in and out of the winery. I don’t think this was in SMV’s control, but if they lobbied to get it done, it was brilliant.

This pickup included the 2020 White Blend (Viognier/Petit Manseng), which I loved at the Soft Opening, the 2019 Red Blend (Cabernet Franc, Petit Verdot, and Merlot) and the 2021 Cabernet Franc. These are three solid bottles to cellar and savor with friends. The package also came with a lovely SMV Christmas Tree ornament.

And then we come to Sunday, and another Walsh pickup party. I look forward to these quarterly events. It’s a really long drive there for me now, and worth every moment of it. I met a friend at Walsh and we headed in to get things started.

For this pickup party, we met with Nate in the Garden Room and walked up to the production facility. This space is massive, and the cover photo gives you a sense for how much wine they are producing now. They had petit verdot in bins finishing fermentation, and Nate explained that the next work for the team would be bottling last year’s wines. We tasted their new Viognier, which I actually enjoyed sampling – see, I write a post about NOT loving something, and then the entire Virginia Wine industry conspires to provide me samples I will enjoy. Never say never, right?

The second pour was a really exciting project, that is an example of what makes Walsh so interesting. The Paeonia White Blend is a blend of four grapes, all from the Bethany Ridge site. It’s named after the town of Paeonian Springs, and according to Nate, when they planted these grapes in 2016, the intent was to reserve high quality ones to make a blend like this. These grapes are from the 2021 harvest, and so this wine sat in barrel and then bottle for a good bit of time, and the texture in the wine shows it. This is not a crisp and simple white wine, which tends to be my go-to for summer white wines, this is a thinking person’s white wine, worth time and savoring.

And here we go again with the Viognier. I absolutely love this wine. I love most things Chenin and Albarino, so I’m not surprised that I love this wine. We actually had a bottle of this on the patio with bread service, and hummus and crackers. This is to white wine, what What Will The Women Drink is to red wine. They knocked it out of the park here.

We also sampled the 2021 Twin Notch Red Blend, which I generally enjoy as an easy drinking red wine. It’s pretty versatile as a table wine, something to have in the afternoon with cheese and crackers or snacks, or something to warm up with on a chilly evening outside.

Our last sample was the 2021 Dutchman’s Creek Cabernet Franc. This is my favorite of their vineyard-specific Cabernet Francs. It has a little more earthiness and tannin to it, and you know that is what I love.

Nate showed us the North Gate Petit Verdot as it was finishing fermentation and discussed the importance of punchdown and how fermentation temperature impacts the flavors in the wine. The production space is so fun to visit, though, and I saw a tank of 2022 Russ Mountain Merlot and was praying to get a splash out of that for our glasses. Sadly, not yet.

I swapped the Viognier in the club package for more Sauvignon Blanc, and swapped a Twin Notch and a Paeonian White for more 2019 Russ Mountain Merlot (gotta get it while it’s still there!). I’m sad about swapping the white blend out now, but hey, it was Russ Mountain. I’m anxious to see the 2020 and 2021 versions too ….. hoping in the next package maybe?

All in all, this was another package pickup knocked out of the park at Walsh – the interaction around the wines in the release and insight into what they’re trying to create is really what I’m after at these events. Of course my wine racks are completely full now. The weather and wine made it a perfect afternoon to relax and soak in the forest vibes.

In other news, the Monticello AVA is Wine Enthusiast’s Wine Region of the Year! Such exciting news. While I want everyone to see how amazing the wine here is, don’t get in my way and crowd my favorite spots, ok?

And get ready, cause there are more T-Shirt ideas floating around out there getting ready to come your way just in time for the holidays and new year. I wonder how I can work a double wine club pickup weekend into a T-Shirt idea? Hmmmmm.