Sabin Wine Journeys

March 29, 2024.   After a week of dreary rain in Northern Virginia, the last Friday in March was predicted to be sunny and beckoned us to the wineries for a Good Friday.   We drove west from Warrenton on Route 211 leaving both Fauquier and Culpeper counties before coming to Rappahannock County.   About halfway between Warrenton and the hamlet of Washington, Virginia, you will find a clutch of wineries around the small crossroads of Amissville.   The oldest of these, and in fact the first winery in Rappahannock County, is Gray Ghost Vineyard and Winery where Al and Cheryl Kellert opened shop 1994.   One turn off of Route 211 into their driveway is all it takes.   Gray Ghost sits on land that was the former campground for the 7 th Virginia Calvary (“Ashby’s Calvary”) after Gettysburg.   It is not uncommon in farming their 14 acres of vines to turn up a Civil War artifact or two.   Many are on display in the tasting room.   The Gray Ghost...

March 14, 2024.   Back in the winter of 2022, Kim and I with some of our companions spent a nice afternoon with the owner of 50 West Winery, Mike Canney.   We came away with a desire to visit someday the Mother winery – that is Sunset Hills Vineyard near Purcellville.   While 50 West aims at the younger clientele from its location right on Route 50 near Aldie, Sunset Hills is the more established, family-friendly farm locale.   Still, to discuss one is to discuss both as they are two sides of a single coin. Mike and Diane Canney first planted vines at Sunset Hills in 1999 on a 45-acre farm that included an 1870’s era working barn.   Sunset Hills was incorporated in 2006 and 50 West came along in 2017, both owned by the Canney’s.   Most of the grapes come from two farms in the Shenandoah, but more on them in a bit.   In July 2022, the Canney’s sold all of these properties to Chris and Katie Key.   We wanted to visit Sunset Hills under the new own...

February 24, 2024.   Hello Readers and welcome our 101st blog post on Virginia wineries.   Looking at our first few efforts, we have come a long way.   We do hear from readers who ask for even more information, especially in tasting notes.   Going forward, I’ll try to provide some useful information without needlessly over-specifying. Let’s profile Nokesville Winery off of Route 28 in Nokesville, Prince William County, near Bristow and Manassas.   Your initial impression driving up to the winery is that this is a garage operation and you’d be correct.   But it resembles the garagistes in that the founder-owner-winemaker Dustin Miner, grows almost all of his grapes and produces all of his wine on-site.   That is a large garage where the unadorned tasting room and its seating coexist with stainless steel tanks in one large space.   Atmosphere is very casual.   No fireplaces.   There is a side patio for outside seating in warmer months....

February 24, 2024.   Barboursville Vineyards, near the little crossroads of Barboursville in Orange County, is unquestionably, one of the most recognized and applauded wine operations in Virginia.   They have won the Virginia Governor’s Cup five times, the last in 2021.   When Queen Elizabeth visited Virginia to commemorate the founding of Jamestown, it was Barboursville wine that was served at the reception.   Barboursville, consistently appears on lists of Virginia’s best wineries.*   We last visited Barboursville in 2021 and wrote somewhat disparagingly of the tiny antiseptic "Discovery" tasting room where visitors received tasting samples in automated amounts from dispensing machines.   Those machines are still in place, a remnant of COVID, but we understand are being phased out in favor of humans.   Today, we drove to the winery almost by accident.   I misread the opening time of a winery we planned to visit, and with time on our hands de...

February 23, 2024.   We had one more stop on our Friday travels: a drive through the country about a half an hour from Septenary to Knight’s Gambit Vineyard in a very rural part of Charlottesville.   The name “Knight’s Gambit” comes from a short story by William Faulkner that was well-loved by his daughter Jill Faulkner Summers.   Mr. Faulkner lived nearby the property that Jill and her husband bought in the 1970’s.   Their son, Paul Summers, William Faulkner’s grandson, planted grapes on the property in 2003 and, with partner Maggie Duensing, opened the winery in 2016.                                                                    ...