Sabin Wine Journeys

What’s Been Going On.   Well, 2023 is coming to end, dear readers. It's tme to summarize what we've been up to. We began 2023 by checking-in with Annette Boyd for our second annual interview.   We hope we’ll have another conversation with her next year.   Over the course of   2023, we also interviewed Gabriele Rausse (May), Dr. Mizuho Nita (July), and Kirk Wiles (October).   These are in addition to informal chats with at least 17 winery and vineyard owners who unfailingly offered unique insights on their passion of growing and making wine in Virginia’s challenging environment.   We expanded our Facebook reach through the Sabin Wine Journeys page and regularly post to the Virginia Wine Mafia Facebook group. I also was privileged to attend the upper-level undergraduate/graduate-level “Introduction to Wine and Beer” course at George Mason University (March – May).   My sincere compliments to Professor Kerri LaCharite who must be the hardest working faculty member at GMU.

December 7, 2023.   We felt it was high time to get back to our winery visits after taking a break over Thanksgiving.   We drove out to Boxwood Estate Winery which has a Middleburg address but is just over the county line in Fauquier County.   Approaching Boxwood from the south on Route 626 just outside of Halfway, you will pass the distinctive ochre-colored, white-columned manor house at Wavery.   This was the site of Piedmont Winery, the first commercial winery in Virginia’s modern era.   It is amazing that in just one generation we could move from dairy farm to nascent winery to, with Boxwood, a purpose-built modern winemaking facility encircled with extensive producing vines.   So much more is in store for us in the Commonwealth. Boxwood Estate Winery is owned by John Kent Cooke, the former president of Washington’s professional football franchise.   He appears to have brought together a stellar supporting cast to help establish his winery: Lucie Morton for viticulture, Stèphan