The story below is a preview from our September/October 2024 issue. For more stories like it, Subscribe Today. Thank you!
A local vineyard is a small part of a bigger picture.
Rory Rhodes
Estate grown Chardonnay ripens in the autumn sun.
Virginia’s wine industry is on the rise. The 2024 Virginia Governor’s Cup competition had 752 entries and awarded 138 gold medals to various state wineries, the most ever recorded. Last summer, word that renowned Bordeaux winery Chateau Montrose had purchased RdV Vineyards in Delaplane made headlines in The Washington Post and various industry publications. The first major foreign investment since Italy’s Zonin family founded Barboursville Vineyards in the mid 1970s, the new venture signals that the winemaking industry has begun to take Virginia seriously.
Recognition has been hard won, after centuries of struggling to adapt European vines to Virginia’s conditions. English colonists attempted to make wine from native grapes before trying, unsuccessfully, to grow European varietals. Thomas Jefferson spent years experimenting with vines on his Monticello estate. Vineyards successfully established during the 1800s were cleared out during Prohibition. But in recent decades, significant advancements in site selection, grapes and vineyard techniques are yielding impressive results.
Rory Rhodes
Brian Weber, director of operations, and Jacqui Sobieski, president and winemaker, have spent six years making the vineyard a destination property.
Over the last 50 years, Virginia has grown from a handful of vineyards and wineries to over 300 across the state, including here in Southwest Virginia. One of those, Virginia Mountain Vineyards, is about five miles outside of historic Fincastle in Botetourt County, perched on the upside of the Allegheny Mountains. The sweeping, 92-acre property has nine acres under vine, backed by spectacular views of rolling hills which fade into the Blue Ridge Mountains to the east.
Virginia Mountain Vineyards grows five wine varietals in lush, tidy rows on its slopes: Chardonnay, Traminette, Merlot, Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot. After the harvest, the vineyard blazes yellow against a colorful backdrop of hardwoods and evergreens. It is a beautiful, and busy, time for the small family-owned operation.
“In autumn, you’re always focused on the vineyard,” says Jacqui Sobieski, president and winemaker. “We’re testing grapes daily to determine if the acidity and sugar levels are optimal for picking.”
Brian Weber, Jacqui’s husband, is director of operations. He and Riley Sobieski, Jacqui’s nephew and vineyard manager, oversee the harvest with help from a crew of family, friends and volunteers. Winemaking begins as soon as the grapes are picked. De-stemming, pressing and fermenting take a couple of weeks, and then the wines are either allowed to rest in stainless steel tanks or aged in French oak barrels before bottling.
All bottling and labeling is done on-site. The vineyard currently produces about 1,500 cases annually—boutique by any standards but the most they’ve done since 2018, when they purchased the property.
Rory Rhodes
The lush vineyard is framed by sweeping views of the Blue Ridge Mountains.
In 2017, Jacqui and Brian were living in Maryland, working high-powered jobs in large-scale IT systems and corporate law, respectively. Both from large families (Jacqui has six siblings, Brian has eight), Jacqui’s family had recently lost their mother, the “glue” who held everyone together, and were looking for something to keep them connected. Jacqui and Brian were also interested in new career challenges, and Jacqui’s long interest in winemaking proved to be the catalyst.
Attending nephew Riley’s graduation from James Madison University, some of the family ended up at a nearby vineyard, which happened to be for sale. “We were talking about a fantasy situation, ‘What if we got it?’” Riley says. “I stoked the flames and said, ‘I’ll definitely come and help.’”
Courtesy of Virginia Mountain Vineyards
Jacqui had been fascinated by the process of making wine since visiting Napa Valley in the 1980s, which she describes as then being a series of farms, very different than today’s tourist juggernaut. Winemakers were often available to pop into the tasting room to talk and share ideas. She found herself drawn both to the process and the historical context of making wine. “Wine is one of the oldest beverages consumed by mankind,” she says. “It’s part of our human history and that fascinated me. People are constantly striving to make better and better wine. It’s like chasing the Holy Grail.”
That family conversation at the vineyard convinced her to propose the idea of buying one to Brian. “We were both ready for something new,” Brian says. “I was ready to get out of the office. Knowing Jacqui, I knew we would move quickly. I knew that she would really do her homework on what was involved. Plus, I just saw how excited she was about it. So, I wasn’t a hard sell.”
Want to learn more about how Virginia Mountain Vineyards came to be? Check out the latest issue, now on newsstands, or see it for free in our digital guide linked below!
The story above is a preview from our September/October 2024 issue. For more stories like it, Subscribe Today. Thank you!