Sabin Wine Journeys

February 28, 2025.   Nate Walsh is devoted to the production side of winemaking.   Nate is the owner of Walsh Family Wine near Hillsboro in western Loudoun County and more than many winery owners, has applied his experience, starting as a cellar rat up to being a full-fledged winemaker, to improve winemaking in the region.   With Nate approaching business from the production end and wife Sarah applying her background in wine wholesale, they founded their winery in 2014, a year after they married.     According to Nate, back then, there were few places in Loudoun where new owners could get started without making huge investments in land and equipment.   The Walsh’s started with equipment loaned by a vineyard in Waterford.   Remembering this beginning, Walsh Family Wine has established a winemaker’s incubator program to encourage three or four new winemakers every year to use Walsh equipment and guidance to produce their own brands.   Nate loves...

February 28, 2025.   Looking for places we have not written about that are open in this bleak mid-winter, we came across Kalero Vineyard in the Loudoun Heights cluster of wineries near Hillsboro.   Owner Ann Fortin purchased 130 acres on Short Hill Mountain west of Hillsboro in 2015 with the goal to start a vineyard.   The focus of the property is the Heartstone Barn, whose cornerstone is etched 1834.     Restored with wood that glows in the sunlight and offset with the rustic stone wall, this is a nice large interior vaulted space in which to host the weddings and private events that are their primary business.      Seating in the barn is at new wood tables that can be configured in many designs depending on the party.   There is no fireplace.   Without the sun, the barn may seem dark except for the two-storey windows facing the West Virginia line just a couple of miles away.   Wedding receptions may flow out from the huge windo...

July 26, 2024.   Proceeding along Route 9 – Charles Town Pike - you will find Bozzo Family Vineyards just minutes from the West Virginia line. Even though the mailing address is Purcellville, they are much closer to the Town of Hillsboro.                                                                                                    Steve Bozzo Steve and Maureen Bozzo founded the vineyards in 2013 and had their first significant harvest in 2018, the same year that they opened the tasting room....

July 26, 2024.   A weather system that had been parked at the Pennsylvania state line for a week or so made days very unpredictable for heavy thunderstorms along the front.   Finally, it cleared a window for good winery travel to the northwest corner of Loudoun Country.   Our first stop was to Notaviva Farm Brewery and Winery outside the town of Hillsboro.   The town of Harpers Ferry West Virginia is only about 15 minutes away.   Notaviva is the creation of Stephen and Sharron Mackey, who founded the vineyard in 2008 and built the tasting room on top of the family home.   The Mackey’s raised their family downstairs while the winery grew upstairs.   If you want hear more about that whole life experience, you should Steve’s book, Dream Build Believe: Love, Wine, Music and the Founding of Notaviva Vineyards (Mascot Books 2016).   He’ll even autograph a copy.   The tasting room is a three-storey vaulted barn of rough-hewn woods with 19-foot ...

August 4, 2022.  After attending the pre-harvest meeting of the Loudoun Wineries and Winegrowers Association hosted by Hillsborough Vineyard and Brewery, I decided to stay after to visit the Baki family and sample their wine.   Hillsborough Vineyard has a steep 14 acres of vines just east of the small town of Hillsboro on busy Route 9.   Note for purposes of searching and Googling that “Hillsborough,” the vineyard, is spelled differently from “Hillsboro,” the town.   Hillsboro, the town, is famous for being among other things, the birthplace of Orville and Wilbur Wright’s mother, Catherine Koener, from early German settlers in Loudoun County.   Kim and I last visited Hillsborough in the winter of 2017 and noted both the view and the wines. The Baki family, from Turkey, purchased the vineyard property and planted the first vines in 2001.   The original tasting room, an 1830’s stone barn, opened in 2002 and was renovated in 2013.   Kerem Baki is the v...