Wines We’ve Been Drinking Lately – June 2025 Edition

It’s been hot. I mean really, really hot, in Virginia. We had a week where three days hit 100+ and the rest of the days were too close for comfort. This is fantastic for our grape vines, since they had a deluge of rain to restore some moisture balance to the soil (and officially end the DC area drought). From what I’m seeing on social media, growers are now hedging their vines and working to control some of the vigorous overgrowth to force the vines’ efforts into making amazing, super-concentrated grapes for this year’s harvest. We’re on a great streak, and I’m hopeful we will see the 2025 vintage continue what began with a very solid 2022, the astonishing 2023, and what shaped up to be a great 2024. I simply haven’t had enough ’24 barrel samples yet, and I need to focus on getting to see those in action before they get bottled.

June was a really great month, coming off a fantastic vacation overseas. It started with the opening of the Hark tasting room, and picking up some truly amazing wine there.

During the super hot streak, I had to have white wines to refresh me. Fortunately I have a decent supply and here is what we had a lot of:

2024 Ankida Verday – apple, low alcohol, pleasing and refreshing sensations. Great weekend afternoon on the porch wine.

2024 Ankida Rosé of Pinot Noir – I love their Pinot Noir, and I love this wine so much too – it’s such a great one to have with anything – cheese, paella, caprese, Steely Dan on the deck with the fan running.

2022 Ankida Pinot Noir – I mean, I am having an Ankida Summer right now, and this wine recently got 98 points from Vinepair. While I’m not one for calculating or attending to points, the scoring people got this one right. This wine is showing up beautifully right now, even in the hot summer, it’s so great with just about anything you make for dinner. Pretty sure we had some nice steak from the grill that evening.

2024 Albariño from Fifty-Third Winery and Vineyard – I adored the 2023 so much, and Kenny grabbed me two of the 2024 before they halted sales. This is so refreshing and wonderful. I do think Albariño has overtaken Chenin as my favorite white grape right now, and this is a love affair built to last.

2023 Walsh Chenin Blanc – I do still love this grape too. It’s consistent and pleasant, nice acidity, and good clean fruit with hints of apple, pear and even sometimes peach to it. This rates as among the most refreshing wines for a weekend afternoon. I love sharing Chenin with friends.

In the middle of the month I made a trek to Williamsburg for Kenny’s 40th birthday. Kenny has an absolutely incredible wine collection, and put together a Virginia 2014 Red Blend blind tasting. Some were officially labeled as a Meritage, but not all. He followed the blind tasting with two 2009 blends, showcasing that many Virginia wineries can age their solid red wines for over a decade. The rule of thumb we always had was the big boys like Linden and Barboursville could safely age red wine. Along with those two heavy hitters within Kenny’s lineup Glen Manor, Pollak, Early Mountain, and Michael Shaps were featured.

Other flights included a number of Spanish and Italian reds, a significant amount of sparkling, including incredible champagne Kathy brought, and some desert wines. Kenny throws one hell of a party. Don’t even get me started on the food. This is, after all, a wine blog.

Capping off June, which is of course Pride Month, was an Out and About visit to the Virginia Wine Collective. This was so much fun. Aside from hanging out with Jake and Tasha, the group was wonderful and the whole experience was a blast. We had 28 people come and enjoy the wines from six different labels. Jake also gave the group a tour of the facility and an overview of the work of the incubator and what they wanted to accomplish there. If you have forgotten what I’ve told you about it, this is a facility owned by Eastwood, and it will house their wine production. It also provides a production space and storage (and gives winemakers an opportunity to establish a license) for small batch producers. Right now they house Delve, Dogwood and Thistle, Zora Chloe, Joy Ting, Mathieu Finot, and Jake Busching Wines. They offer many of these wines by the glass or bottle in a tasting room with a nice menu to accompany your wine. It’s a great spot to gather with friends and try something new or enjoy an old favorite.

I dove right in and enjoyed a glass of Cheninquisition from Jake, Delve’s Aurora (a new release Roussanne-Albariño blend – omg, summer of Albariño people!), Dogwood and Thistle’s Cabernet Franc, Zora Chloe’s Dark Fruit, Jake’s 22 Cabernet Franc, and Eastwood’s Rosé. People really enjoyed the selection of wines, and they’re currently featuring a Cabernet Franc flight from four different winemakers. I’m heading back for that with lunch soon.

June is now done, it’s Hump Day today, and there is a 2023 Ankida Chardonnay in my fridge calling my name. I understand that inventory for this is running low, and yes I may have grabbed 5 at my last visit, so I suggest you get there now to try it out. This is probably my favorite Chardonnay at the moment.

I hope you’re heading into an incredible summer, and staying cool with amazing Virginia Wine. Are you checking out new wines and new places? Want a great pride t-shirt like the one I’m wearing in the selfie with Jake? Or better yet, grab our hot-off-the-presses dumpster fire t-shirt or sweatshirt? What else would you pair with the insanity that surrounds us right now? Not popcorn, all you need is Virginia Wine. Get your tee-shirt here.