Sabin Wine Journeys

What’s Been Going On.   Well, 2022 is coming to end, dear readers.   In this, my first year of retirement, I thoroughly enjoyed driving around the Commonwealth with Kim, meeting winery owners, growers, wine makers, and staff.   Much is going on in the state – lots of experimentation with varietals and blends to see what works best in the unique climate that is Virginia.   For example, we applaud Justin Montifalco’s work with Rkatsiteli and Saperavi blends, Adam McTaggart’s work with Carménère at Casanel, and Kerem Baki’s work with Fer Servadou at Hillsborough Vineyards. We began the year by interviewing Annette Boyd of the Virginia Wine Marketing Office.   She offered many useful perspectives on the state of the industry and anticipated publication of the Virginia Wine Vision Statement which happened in March.   We hope to start off 2023 by visiting with Annette again.   We spent some time in Loudoun County this year and made the acquaintance with the Loudoun Winery Association.

  December 31, 2021. Our household has been dealing with COVID-19, quarantine, and self-isolation during the month of December.   The Holidays were awful for us this year and traveling to any wineries was out of the question for our own well-being and the health of others.   But as we are now coming out of the bad times, at least for now, and anticipating a better 2022, we are looking back over the year 2021 particularly reflecting on our experiences in wine.   Since we inaugurated the Sabin Wine Journeys blog in May, we have documented 19 separate winery visits, and blog-posted about the 87 wines we sampled.   I notice that Kim tends to sample less but buy more than I do.   Here are the wines we highlighted from our travels this year: Chardonnay . Old Farm Winery at Hartland 2020 Winery at Bull Run 2019 Grace Estates 2017 Captain John Petit Manseng . Winery at La Grange 2019 White Hall 2017 Pinot Grigio . Barboursville 2019 Stone Mountain 2019 Other :