Ethos Wine and Tea with Out and About!

Kylie and I had been emailing for a bit to set a time for Out and About to do a meetup.  We talked about doing one at her previous workplace, but once she and her business partner Tiffany opened Ethos about two months ago, the stars aligned.

Ethos Wine and Tea has a mission to be a beverage destination and promote wines that are small batch, natural, and innovative. They also mean to be inclusive and welcoming for all, and that fits in well with Out and About’s mission, and what I want to do, connecting the greater CVille LGBTQ+ community to local wine. Ethos is a woman-owned, LGBTQ+-owned, Asian-owned business, and intends to connect the diversity of greater Charlottesville and provide a welcoming place to relax and enjoy wine, tea, and snacks. Representation will become even more important in the coming months and years than it is now. There is a good menu here (and it will continue to develop!) of teas and small plates to share (or be selfish and enjoy all by yourself!).

Out and About conducted ticket sales through Ethos for this event, and this was the first time we’ve tried this with a wine event. We ended up bringing 12 people to the event, which made it intimate, fun and educational.

Kylie lined up three wines for us to learn about during this session. We began with a discussion around Linden’s 2019 Wabi Sabi. This is a blend of Vidal Blanc, Semillon, Viognier and Petit Manseng. I’ve had earlier vintages at Linden in the past and recalled them being sweeter than this one. The characteristic Viognier flavors came through, though it was softened by the Semillon and I imagine the Vidal Blanc too. Kylie shared that she had not yet met Jim Law but she knew his legendary status in Virginia Wine with more than 40 years working his vineyards in Northern Virginia. Kylie mentioned that some of the influences in the wine we were tasting were likely from the limestone soils on the Linden site. People enjoyed this white blend.

The second wine Kylie selected was the 2023 Hark Vineyards Rosé. This wine was 100% from Cabernet Sauvignon grapes grown on the Hark property. Kylie started this discussion by drawing a chart for the group to explain how wines are made balancing the types of grapes with the amount of time the winemaker allows the juice to spend on the grape skins and/or with seeds and stems:

She used this chart to show red and white grapes and winemaking method – time on skins or not time on skins. Within the chart she showed what kind of wine was made as a result. So when red grapes are pressed for their juice, and they sit on the skins with seeds and possibly stems, you see the juice from the clear grape “flesh” absorb color from the skins and become red wine. They you immediately remove the grape juice from the skins, you get a rosé and if you do it fast enough, you can even get a white wine. If you press white grapes and remove from skins immediately, you get a white wine, but if you leave it on the skins you will get an “orange” wine. Kylie noted that vinifera from Europe have the white fruit inside the grapes, but there are hybrids and other “families” of grapes that will have red “flesh” in them. More about that later.

The Hark Rosé was a lovely example (and husband’s favorite of the lineup) of making wine by giving the juice a short time on the skins after pressing to make a bright, higher acid, tangy wine. Some sense of strawberry in it, and a faint herbaceousness just appearing for a moment with each sip – it was barely there. Kylie talked to us about how the tasting notes often influence our senses, and how she tries to read them after she’s decided what she is tasting. But once she mentioned the herbaceousness that comes with Cabernet Sauvignon, I picked up the faintest bit of it in the wine. I love this Rosé (remember the most recent visit to Hark). I do find it very refreshing, and at our table we talked about how amazing it would be with a white fish and some lemon-pepper seasoning, or with spicy Thai food.

Our last wine was the Spinning Wheel Wines 2023 Not Nothing. I may have scooped Matt again, as he was unaware of this label, though he is very familiar with the grower and production facility. This winemaking project is a great exemplar of some of the exciting and innovative things happening in Virginia Wine right now. This trio doesn’t have a vineyard, doesn’t have a production facility, and they’re spread out across the East Coast. They purchased 2023 Chambourcin from the Mount Airy site farmed by Tim Jordan (of Commonwealth Crush fame). This was made with very low intervention – crush the grapes, drain the juice, ferment, and bottle. It was produced like a white wine, but because the Vitis Labrusca grapes (not Vitis Vinifera which produce so much of the wine we know and love) have red flesh, it produced dark red juice. As a Rosé, this wine appeared almost like a lighter red like a Pinot Noir in the glass.

I really enjoyed this wine. In general, I don’t love Chambourcin wines, they tend to get treated with a ton of oak and come out with very heavy cherry and oak flavors that I find distasteful. This wine however, presented with big, fresh cherry flavor that I really enjoyed. Very bright fruit, and I detected low acidity. This is one I could easily drink on the porch. It is a super small production wine – Ethos has a few bottles and I think does sell it by the glass, so I’d really recommend getting in there to check it out.

After our discussion and education was finished, every participant was offered a glass of their choice, and a bottle of Rosemont 2021 Extra Brut Sparkling White. Kylie told us that this wine is made in a method similar to Prosecco. It was from Chardonel grapes from the 2021 vintage. Chardonel is another hybrid that is gaining popularity with growers in Virginia due to climate change. I went with a glass of this very bright and high acid bubbly wine. It was super refreshing, dry, and fun. Hubby got his glass of Spinning Wheel and let me enjoy it on his behalf. Marriage is so good.

Ethos is a great place to check out some wines you may not see elsewhere or easily access. They have a fantastic selection and it’s a fun, “chill vibe” atmosphere to spend some time enjoying tea, wine, and snacks. They have a good menu that includes paninis and light snacks. We ordered their bread and butter just to get a nice base for our wine, and it was really good, made by local bakery Cou Cou Rachou. I highly recommend an afternoon or evening there – they offer some desserts you can enjoy after a meal and stroll around downtown, and it’s definitely a welcoming spot, promoting some of what is most exciting in Virginia Wine.

I’m taking a few months off from coordinating these visits as my work schedule has gone a little haywire and downtime is getting critical. Our next scheduled Out and About wine event is March 22, 2025 to Hark Vineyards for a cellar tasting with winemaker AJ Greely. I’m REALLY excited about this one, because Hark has made so many wines I really enjoy, and AJ will also provide some fantastic education about the process of winemaking and what she’s doing at Hark – so mark your calendars people, and watch for this coming up early next year. See you at a winery soon, I hope!