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Willowcroft Farm Vineyards

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November 9, 2024    Loudoun County is celebrating 40 years of the wine industry this year - 2024 - because in 1984 Willowcroft Farm Vineyards released its first commercial vintage and became the first winery in the county.   Owner and winemaker Lew Parker bought an old farm on Mount Gilead in 1979 after a successful career in the medical device business.   He planted his first vines in 1980 and replanted in 1981 when the first plantings died.   Lew was the Virginia wine person of the year in 2002 and the winemaker of the year in Loudoun County in 2023 showing long-term recognition by his peers.     The old red barn from 1875 houses the wine production area on the ground floor, a small wood-beamed tasting room on the second floor and a loft room on the third floor.        The tasting room itself is cramped with virtually no seating.   Go upstairs for that.       Or better yet, take your picnic and your wine to the lawn where Willowcroft has picnic tables and Adirondack chairs
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Stone Tower Winery

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November 9, 2024.   We met our tasting associate, C.J. Monroe, when we first walked up to the tasting bar in the Harvest Barn at Stone Tower Winery in Loudoun County.   He is a stocky 26-year old with sandy hair under his baseball cap, looking as if he would be at home in a brewery, but we were impressed by his wine knowledge and affability.   He managed to focus on us in spite of the heavy foot traffic that comes through Stone Tower on Saturdays.   CJ is a veteran winery worker, formerly at Optium Cellars doing a weekend gig.   He works for Loudoun County parks during the week.   From his father he gets a love of the Yankees (I guess I can forgive him) and the Jets, and German wine like Gewürztraminer.   That’s the one wine Stone Tower doesn’t offer.   Here are some basics about Stone Tower. The winery is one turn off of Route 15 south of Leesburg.   From there you climb Hogback Mountain to the winery along a gravel road.   The county has grouped its wineries in geographic “cl
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A Word from Management

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      Election week began with such high intentions, quickly turning to sadness for us, and now a foreboding sense is seeping into the air.   With this heaviness, you might ask why continue writing about such a frivolous thing as wine?   I would say wine is a joyful drink, extolled by poets throughout the ages as a social lubricant, which, God knows, we need right now.   Leave the fetid air of the caucus rooms, the hearing rooms, and board rooms of the East and come out to the Virginia countryside for the fresh air and newly vintaged wines.   Wine has no partisanship unless it is for sweet over dry, red over white, sparkling over still, or some other way of thinking.   I would also say that there are a large number of folks who depend on the grape for their livelihood.   The stories of their labors, their failures and successes should be told regardless of who holds power in Washington for the next four vintages.   After all, four vintages is not so long in the life of a grapevine.
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