Your favorite uneducated wine blog is now a little over five years old, and this was the most exciting year for this little ole wine blog in so many ways. First of all, it rebooted from what looked like death in 2022. With all the transitions that came from a promotion to an insane role at my (now former) job, my father passing away, and COVID lockdown, followed by the soul searching that led to retirement, relocation and a new job (same role, better people, better place) and settling into a bit of a different pace there was little to no posting to and little to no reading of this blog….
By February 2023 I was visiting wineries and wrote about Walsh and Wisdom Oak and traffic started getting generated again. April came along with well-read posts on Septenary, Gabrielle Rausse, Mount Alto Vineyards, a guest post from that Favorite Brother-in-law (FBI), Stinson, and then a write-up after a day with Luke at Hazy Mountain. April 2023 became my most-read month ever. That was a ton of posting (and wine drinking!) and a lot of views. And I’m pretty pleased with a bunch of those posts too. I give so much credit to Virginia Wine Love for being a place to share these posts and the community there that actually reads a few now and then….
So the theme of this re-invigoration of the blog remains going to new places and doing a few things different than I’ve done before. I went to a bunch of new-to-me and newly opened wineries, and branched out with some things beyond this blog (t-shirts, anyone?). It was exciting stuff and it’s energized my interest in writing this blog as a way to continually challenge myself to try new places and wines, share thoughts about them, and promote community around Virginia Wine. We have something truly special here that hasn’t yet been hyper-commercialized and turned into a crazy race for the “next hot thing.” I’m pretty hopeful it’s going to stay this way for a while as the diversity of the wine scene is bringing forth so many things I enjoy.
It was a year of firsts for the blog – we crossed 10,000 views (and then quickly raced past 15,000), and I attended my very first soft opening for a winery which subsequently generated my most-read post ever by a very wide margin:
With all that nazel-gazing and meta-analysis behind us, and now that my Ten Bottles from 2023 post has been up for a bit… let’s revisit a top ten of the year that was on My NoVa Wine Blog.
My top ten posts of 2023:
#10 – T-shirts Launch! This is just fun – there are several designs in the queue for 2024, hopefully you will see at least one you love and join the fun! Remember our promise – when I see you at a winery in one, I buy you a glass.
#9 – Mountain Run Guest Post – This was a fun idea, and one we may do again, either with good ‘ole FBI or with another blogger out there. A dear friend has a fashion and style blog with her sister, and we talk about doing a cross-post collab about fashion for the winery (see #10 for my fashion tips).
#8 – SMV Soft Opening – I guess I was among the very first to post about it, so people ended up reading it to get a sense of the new winery in the area. It’s pretty close to me and convenient, and it’s great for an upscale experience. They’ve hired a renowned winemaker from South Africa, so we are in for some exciting wines starting this Spring. But wow, what a heck of a readership response on that post – that will be a hard record to break anytime soon, so I’m gonna need to get to planning some blockbuster posts. Think National Enquirer meets Virginia Wine Scene…..
#7 – Crossing the 10k Mark – This was more navel-gazing, and I’m pretty good at that. It was a great feeling to hit that milestone, given that I was feeling like the blog was pretty much dead. I enjoyed writing this one because I got to express what draws me to Virginia Wine over other wines out there. Hope it wasn’t too scary being in my head for 12 minutes when you read the post.
#6 – Gabrielle Rausse – This one keeps getting hits even though it’s eight months old now. I love the vibe at this winery and the wine is good and very reasonably priced. Plus, goat cheese, hummus, and baguette. Pretty much all I need to live on for the next 30 years. The setting is literally perfect, and if you time your visit right, you’ll run into the man himself, who is quite a hoot and well worth talking to for a bit.
#5 – Barrel Tasting and 2020s at Linden – I think barrel tasting is my new favorite thing. It’s like a sneak peak into the future, getting to see what the wines are becoming and building anticipation for their release as full and finished wines. The event was amazing, and some great pics came from that one! Plus, hung out with Matt and two new-to-me Va Wine Social Media Royalty connections. And those 2023 wines…. stay tuned!
#4 – A Check-in with Jake Busching – Jake is one of my Va Wine heroes – he is doing some amazing stuff, and he is part of the fabric of the community of Virginia Wine – he has a long history helping to start up some wineries in the Monticello AVA, and now he’s facilitating an incubator for those launching their brands. He’s a great guy, very accessible to talk with and a fabulous winemaker. He’s got some absolutely incredible stuff coming up on his label and I’m waiting on his pop-ups to restock some F8.
#3 – My Birthday on the Ankida Overlook – Getting hubby to go to a winery is always quite a feat. Getting him to acknowledge that the wine is good and the views are incredible is quite something else. We had such a wonderful afternoon on the overlook drinking Vin Blanc. Of course there is also the VWL meet-up there less than 2 months later too.
#2 – Getting to Know Mount Alto – these guys rock. This first visit with my sister and FBI that introduced me to their wine was something amazing. A few samples, and I was hooked. I got hubby to go on the second visit, and he acknowledges that he likes the wine (again, incredibly high praise!). The wine is fantastic, their plan is really cool, and they’re really just about making great wine, not a venue, not an instagram-worthy moment of photo shoots, (tho the cover photo of this post is my favorite insta-moment on their vineyard site). Their focus is truly getting in tune with the vines and the land and bringing them together to make fantastic wine. I’m so glad to know them.
#1 – Arterra Tannat Vertical Dinner – Great wine, amazing food, and a ton of education about the winemaker’s approach and lessons learned about the impact of the growing season on the wine over 7 years of winegrowing/making on this land (and more than twenty in Virginia). I need more of these vertical experiences in my life. This may become my other focus and thing – finding these vertical experiences and really getting to understand what the makers are learning about farming grapes on their land. Just give me a few months lead on the events so I can arrange my life to attend.
As much as I write about Walsh, it feels weird to note right now that they aren’t included in this particular top ten. It’s hard to isolate one experience there as a favorite – they have a fantastic routine with their pickup parties with some tasting of the package wines and sometimes a dip into what’s in the barrel or tank to preview what is coming soon. I do think they knocked it out of the park with a few notable things this year – that Paeonia White blend, the preview of the 2021 What Will the Women Drink (and the 2020 is really solid), and of course that Bethany Ridge Tannat. None of those posts in isolation made this list, but all of those experiences and wines were memorable. Got a favorite post on the blog from the year? Disagree with any of my faves here? Drop a comment (but be nice 🙂 ).
Now that the retrospective is done, what’s next for the wine blog? I’d love to get back to doing some interviews with winemakers and winery owners to dig into what their take is on the next steps for their farming and winemaking. I’d like to push my own comfort zone and see more about the experimental stuff happening – co-fermentations, very different grapes that are emerging in Virginia (Cayuga? Rkatsitelli? Saperavi?), trying to find good wine from some of these crazy hybrids or other grapes (Chambourcin, Vidal, Chardonel, Norton……. it’s slim pickings for me among these grapes). Matt keeps writing about the Shenandoah region, which I haven’t yet had good experiences with, but I want to check it out some more. I’d really love to do more same varietal, same vintage, different vineyard comparisons. What do we learn comparing wines when we control for the growing season and varietal – what impact does soil site and winemaker approach have on the varietal? And if we can also control approach – pull examples from all low- to no- intervention winemakers – what can we detect in the wine about the impact of site? That sounds like a ton of fun. Wonder if hubby will get excited enough to help me plan a menu, clean the house, and build an invite list to an event like that …… Of course there will also be more and more clever t-shirts too, because even if I am the only buyer, they’re still lots of fun. I’ve also volunteered to coordinate local winery visits for the Out and About social group in greater Charlottesville/Monticello AVA – so looking towards one every other or maybe every month in 2024 (see the Montifalco post if you’re blanking on this one). If you’ve got connections, or if you are so all in on this concept, let me know.
The year ended with a Virginia Wine Love Meetup at Ankida, and that maybe sums up why I’m writing. I really want to focus on supporting community with the blog and have more interaction with readers. I want to get readers’ impressions of the wines they are drinking and the experience they are having at the wineries. We may not agree on favorite wines and wineries, we may love the big, energetic hubs of activity or prefer the boutique, quiet, off-the-beaten path places, but one thing we can agree on is that Virginia wine is vibrant, full of possibility, and a fantastic place to be right now and for the foreseeable future.
As the year closes out, we take a pause and reflect on the year that was and toast all that we’ve been given right here, where we are. I remember with all that has changed that this moment itself is a gift and I’m grateful for what it is. I’m grateful for readers who don’t TL;DR and pass by these posts, I’m grateful for T-shirt wearers, but most of all I am grateful for the winegrowers, winemakers, and those who ensure our Virginia wineries are always warm and welcoming. Thanks for sharing your labor of love with us. Cheers to 2024!
Don’t forget to finish your year out with the shirt, sweatshirt or hat you wanted but didn’t get. Yet.
My NoVa Wine Blog 