Sabin Wine Journeys

February 1, 2025.   Mitchell Harrison knew he was hearing something unusual.   A dairy farmer in rural Fauquier County, Harrison was listening to his HAM radio in the early 1940’s and overheard police radio transmissions – from Berlin, Germany.   Harrison informed the Government.   Shortly after war broke out, he got one of those offers you can't  refuse and sold the whole 700 acres of his Vint Hill Farm to the U.S. Army.   Rumor has it that Vint Hill Farm sat on top of a massive deposit of iron ore that acted as a natural antenna for broadcast reception.   By 1942, the Army established a major signals intelligence site at Vint Hill from which they could intercept Axis radio traffic.   Supposedly one such transmission detailed the Nazi’s Normandy fortifications and proved useful to the Allied Invasion on D-Day.   Through the next decades, Vint Hill continued in the spook world as an intelligence station until its functions were transfer...

April 21, 2023.   South of Warrenton off of Route 29 lies Molon Lave Vineyards, the younger sister to Mediterranean Cellars on the North side of town.   Molon Lave is managed by Louizos Papadopoulos, son of the founders at Mediterranean.   But this is a larger operation with 31 acres under vine of some 50 acres total.   It has fewer wines on its menu, more recent vintages, and less blended wines than Mediterranean.   Both wineries are 100% estate grown. Molon Lave takes its name from King Leonidas of Sparta who, when the Persians demanded they lay down their arms, replied “Molon Lave” or “Come and take them.”   The battle of Thermopylae is also commemorated by the winery’s 480 B.C. Farm Brewery, which opened in 2020.   (We won’t be reviewing 480 B.C. Brewery beyond noting that it features four beers including a Saison, a Belgian Golden, a Dopplebock, and an IPA style beer.) The tasting room and production facility is in a nondescript low-swung build...

April 21, 2023.   When we visited on an abnormally warm April morning, Mediterranean Cellars Winery was celebrating 62 years of winemaking.   While it opened its tasting room outside of Warrenton in Fauquier County in 2003, Mediterranean Cellars has a long lineage of winemaking through its owners, Louis and Katie Papadopoulos.   After an apprenticeship with his father and grandfather in Greece, Louis began winemaking on his own in 1961.   He came to the States in the mid-1960’s and eventually realized that similarities between the red soil around Warrenton and his native Greece showed the potential for wine.   He began planting vines in 1984. We were sorry to have missed Mr. Papadopoulos on our visit, but we had an engaging chat with long-term employee, Brigitta.   Thanks for her hospitality.   The winery sits on a small hill with the tasting room facing east across a patch of vineyard growing white wine grapes.   Looked like bud break was ...