Sabin Wine Journeys - the Virginia Wine Journeys Blog

October 17, 2026.   Petit Domaine Winery near Hillsboro in Loudoun County is a new winery that occupies two realities.   The first reality is the present.   Petit Domaine sits on the Charles Town Pike (Route 9) on the site formerly held by Crushed Cellars.   Not long after our visit there in July 2024, Bob Kalok, the hippie owner, sold his winery to J. Bradley Snyder, who renovated the building and grounds and opened Petit Domaine in 2025.   While Mr. Kalok sold wine, eggs, jams, and other farm items to a peripatetic clientele of plain folk, Mr Snyder’s business model is to be the purveyor of exclusively sparkling wine made in the traditional method to well-heeled patrons.     The present Petit Domaine is a storefront to sell wines made in France by the premier cru house of Saint-Sauvenur of Vertus in the Marne.   Petit Domaine is not selling Virginia wine made with Virginia grapes.   Instead, they offer three nonvintage French sparkli...

October 17, 2026.   Hari Moosani is a software architect during the week and on weekends a grape farmer – a real vigneron.    He sports thick sideburns and a bushy moustache that he may have started when studying at Bangalore University before the wife and kids.   The grower proudly farms his acre and a quarter of vines for his Farm de Vine Vineyard situated on the side of Short Hill near Hillsboro.   Farm de Vine is a small place in the less-frequented part of Western Loudoun.  His acreage yields only around 100 cases a year on a normal year, but his experience has been that “normal” in Virginia is not always a good thing.   Since starting the vineyard in 2021, he’s experienced his first harvest (2022) – an emotional event for him, when the guidance of neighbors and people like Extension Agent Beth Sastre led him to plant small and grow slowly.   Then he endured a season of ruinous rains in 2024, and he completely lost this year’s Cabernet Sauv...

March 14, 2026.   The northernmost winery in Loudoun County is Clyde and Terry Housel’s Hiddencroft Vineyards near Lovettsville, a winery that takes you through their old barn’s corn crib into a lawn filled with flowers in the growing season.   The flowers are a butterfly habitat that fronts an old farmhouse retooled as the tasting room. We had the good fortune of speaking with owner Clyde Housel for an extended period during a quiet time at the winery.     He is as posterchild for the outdoors life – with his tousled white hair, trim beard, professorial glasses.   You might notice his enormous hands from years of pruning and working around the winery.   He has himself renovated most of the old farm buildings on the site which are now used for special intimate events and celebrations.   Hiddencroft, however, does not do large events like weddings.   The big barn they use to host barrel tastings and library tastings, but there is no heat or w...

March 13, 2026.   We continued north on the Harpers Ferry Road to Two Twisted Posts Winery.   Even though it has a Purcellville address, and we’re still in Loudoun County, its actually closer to Harpers Ferry in West Virginia.   According to their website, owner Theresa Robertson was born at a tavern in Colchester England called “Thomas Great-Two Twisted Posts.”*   Later they discovered a seal from the old tavern in Virginia and decided to name the winery after the old tavern.                                                                             The Story of Two Twisted Posts Two Twisted Posts started its vineyard in 2008 with the couple Brad Robertson managing the vineyard and Theresa handling the wine making duties.   Lawn and vines surround the centerpiece big ...