Having a frenemy has its benefits. While I am often in rivalry with Matt to post first (he won this round), hit up a newly opened winery first, or get to an event he cannot attend, it’s been a lot of fun to compare impressions of Virginia Wine with him. Our preferred wines lists are more similar than they are different. And we often invite each other to some great events. Matt set up some time to meet with Corry Craighill, Winemaker at Septenary Winery at Seven Oaks Farm who also makes wine for Valley Road (including 2026 Governors Cup winner 2023 Cabernet Franc Reserve that is waiting on my rack for the right time to taste), a few other wineries, and her own label, Wound Tight. It was really fun to get previews of her first reds that will be served at Septenary and hear her talk about her process and approach.
Corry has been part of Virginia Wine for a long time. I first heard about her when she took over as head winemaker at Sunset Hills in Loudoun after Nate Walsh left to open Walsh Family Wine. Her resume includes time working at Blenheim with Kirsty Harmon and even spending time with Raj Parr in California. Working with well known winemakers has given her a great deal of versatility in how she approaches winemaking, and she really listens to clients and guides them toward the style she hears them describing, but with her own guardrails toward higher quality and more clarity. She is very clear about her own style with her experimentation through Wound Tight, her personal project that I’ve really enjoyed.
While she has been at Septenary since 2020, you will likely recall that in the Monticello AVA, many wineries lost almost everything in a Mother’s Day Frost. The 2021 vintage here actually is the first to show her work with grapes from this property. Because the winery philosophy is to age in barrel for 16-18 months and then in bottle for another 2-3 years, her first red wines started to appear on their menu at the end of 2025. Longer aging is a core tenet of the winery – not an issue of backlog inventory as some are experiencing.
The first wine we sampled was the 2022 Cabernet Franc. This is the first time Septenary did a single variety Cabernet Franc – it was typically blended into their Bordeaux style blends. Corry encouraged the owners to showcase this grape and her style. According to her, and I have heard this from many others, in Virginia you really get a sense for winemaker style from how they make Chardonnay and Cabernet Franc. Based on my own personal data collection, I’d completely agree. This wine was wonderful with ripe dark fruit. I picked up cherry, some spice and there was a wonderful quality that wasn’t earthy but rather similar – very grounded. This wine requires no food, just a desire to feel happy. It will be released this winter, and is well worth a stop to check out.
The second wine was the 2021 Cloverplains blend. Merlot led strongly in this blend at 63%, with 23% Petit Verdot and 15% Cabernet Franc. I’m very good at math, this is rounding. It’s named after a part of the property that isn’t growing grapes currently. Corry stated that she herself gravitates toward this blend, and I can see why. This wine is very light and fresh and doesn’t require pairing. I didn’t take any tasting notes, but I remember the fruit came through clearly and was wonderful. I did bring a bottle home so watch for an instagram post when I open it and I’ll tell you all about it. Corry spoke to the importance of the wine’s personality when blending, and this wine is someone I would hang out with and share secrets with – she’s fun and smart and she will keep them to herself. You can meet her in winter 2026.
We tried the 2021 Carriage House, a 50/50 blend of Merlot and Petit Verdot. These are my top two grapes in Virginia right now, so a blend is totally going to work for me. For this blend Merlot brought the smoothness and some silky sensation and Petit Verdot brought the pucker. This is a fantastic wine that will come out in fall of 2027.
Finally we had the 2021 Deacon, a wine she said they make only in the best vintages. This wine showed up with 58% Tannat and 42% Petit Verdot. You know that is a recipe for greatness. This is a blend that I think Virginia does exceptionally well, with two grapes that grow extremely well here and show up with dark intensity. I bought a bottle of this because I believe it is built to age and will be a great wine for many years to come. It has been released and is available now.
A lot of the grapes are sourced from the estate vineyard, but they also have the Rock Castle vineyard in Goochland. This vineyard provides them with the Tannat that made Deacon. Unfortunately the freeze this Spring did severe damage there and they’ve decided that with the distance, travel time required to maintain it, and lack of electricity on site, it simply isn’t a priority to replant. Instead they are heavily engaged in replanting the estate vineyard (the vines are 30 years old and they saw a good bit of death there this year in the freeze). They are replanting with their signature grapes – Merlot, Cabernet Franc, and Petit Verdot. They will continue to source Sauvignon Blanc and Gruner Veltliner to round out all of their offerings. This means there may not be Tannat to continue making Deacon, so go check it out now!
Corry spoke about making the wines for other wineries too through their custom crush program. She sees her job as helping owners clarify and focus on their own goals. She uses consistent approaches, relying more on neutral oak with some new oak influence (usually low percentages) and using less intervention to bring forward what the season produced. You know that is my jam. Wound Tight is her place to experiment and truly show her own style. I’ve had Little Light, Root Chatter, and Tomboy, which are all fun, refreshing, drink now wines. I cannot wait to share Little Light with our monthly dinner friends.
Corry is one of those who doesn’t seem to seek out the limelight – we don’t see her showing up all over the place at events and she tends to stay fairly low key on social media. She loves this work and embraces the art and labor of it. She seems genuinely excited about the wines she is making at Septenary, and also about the other brands she makes. Getting an hour and a half of her day to hear her share about this passion was a real gift, and a day well spent.
Septenary feels to me like it’s a real under the radar star – with Corry’s red wines coming online now, their menu is exceptional. The views are really fantastic and you really feel as though you are secluded here. Even the cellular reception is poor, which is good for unplugging and restoring your soul with good wine and a great sandwich from Greenwood Grocery. I written about two separate visits to Septenary previously.
Thanks Matt, Kathy, Rich and Kenny for making this day happen too. Days like this are what friends are for. Friends are for Virginia Wine. Happy Virginia Wine Month y’all.
