Sabin Wine Journeys

July 13, 2025.   The Summer of 2025 might be remembered for the fierce heat waves with short daily doses of thunder and rain.   In the foothills of the Blue Ridge where Fallen Tree Vineyard and Farm sits, you have a 180˚ view of the mountains where the storms brew and brood.   Todd and Lisa Hales began growing vines here around 2018 splitting their time between Albermarle County and Virginia Beach.   They opened their quaint tasting room in October 2024.   Fallen Tree is about a half-hour northwest of Charlottesville.   It has a Crozet address, but it’s really White Hall we’re talking about.   The vineyard is just past Stinson Vineyards. We had a nice visit with Mikayla Thompson, who manages the tasting room, and her associate Carol-Linda.                                                            ...

April 13, 2025.   When Southwest Mountains Vineyards opened in 2023, it completed a little triangle of newish wineries with Keswick Vineyards and Merrie Mill Farm, all near the junction of scenic routes 22 and 231 and the crossroads at Cismont in eastern Albermarle County.   The famous Keswick Hall is a short drive south on Route 22.   While Keswick and Merrie Mills are close to average sized Virginia wineries (see note below), Southwest Mountains is the newest and by far the largest of these three with 72 acres under vine and between 16,000 and 19,000 cases annually.   We're told there is no gap in those vines. The winery and vineyard sits inside the Castalia farm estate that once belonged to Meriwether Lewis.   They renovated and expanded a 1903 pole barn into a cavernous two-storey lodge.   I call it a lodge because on the inside, this barn more resembles a large hunting lodge.  The owner, Paul Manning, appears to have spared no expense in either ...

April 11, 2025.   Old Oakencroft.  Readers of the History page on this blog may recall the name of Oakencroft Vineyard and Winery and its founder Felicia Warburg Rogan.   Oakencroft was one of the earliest Virginia wineries of the modern era.   Felicia Rogan was a New York City socialite who's third marriage was to John Rogan, owner of the Boar’s Head Inn in Charlottesville.   (Her first two marriages were to Robert Sarnoff, President of NBC and to Franklin D. Roosevelt, Jr., the President’s son.)   Familiar with fine wine from her entertaining, Felicia came to Virginia in 1976 when Virginia wine was merely a dream.   She learned field work from Lucie Morton and planted her first vines in the distant past of 1978.   Their first crop in 1981 produced commercially acceptable grapes and encouraged them to open Oakencroft Winery in 1983.   The tasting room was in an old smokehouse on the Rogan farm.   Felicia was also the first chairman of t...

May 16, 2023.   Our last winery visit on this trip was to Michael Shaps Wineworks, around thirty minutes south of Charlottesville.   Wineworks is one of the most decorated wineries in the Commonwealth and is one of the only international brands in this sphere.   Michael Shaps learned his wine at school in Burgundy, France and moved to Virginia in 1995 to be winemaker at Jefferson Vineyards.   He managed six vintages there before going out on his own.   He was soon in a partnership with a winemaker in Meursault (Burgundy) France and with King Family Vineyards.   When we visited Wineworks in 2018, the tasting room was a small cramped cabin up a steep mountain road, the site of the old Montdomaine Winery.   He has continued to expand operations and influence since then.   He has shed his partners and since around 2014 I believe that his ventures have been sole proprietorships.   In 2018, Michael purchased Shenandoah Vineyards and continues to...