We’re now into the third month of our highly selective tour through the past two decades of local news and arts in C-VILLE. Already, we’ve touted our early jump on the Obama bandwagon (remember, this is the paper that projected DMB’s rise to the top), and this week, in light of recent news from the Land of Kluge, we highlight another wine-related venture from the great lady’s estate on Blenheim Road. So stay tuned as we keep looking back at the accumulated pluck and provocations that will power this still free and still freethinking institution into the next 20 years.
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Paging through the archives
“In the 20 years since she moved out of her ex-husband’s adjoining mansion and into her own, Kluge has rarely detoured from her ambition to build a brand (the recent shuttering of Fuel, her bistro-gas station concept that failed to sweep the nation, let alone the corner of Market and Ninth streets, doesn’t seem to have thrown her). Indeed, she declares she will build her winery to one of the largest on the East Coast and her wines, like VE, were covered by national media when they were young. Plus, with wine consumption spiking nationally and the sliver of ultrarich Americans getting richer, Vineyard Estates may well be communicating the right message at the right time. As spokeswoman Murray puts it, the ‘marketing is designed to sell a lifestyle, rather than a home.’”
Cathy Harding, September 25, 2007
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Getting covered
This April 15, 2003 cover story took note of a rising tide of art appreciation in Charlottesville. “In the past several years, all over town, new art spaces have proliferated—in restaurants and boutiques, and as cooperatives and nonprofits. The town’s concentration of visual art venues is earning it a national reputation,” wrote Erika Howsare then. Well, these days wall space is still a-plenty as coffee shops and underwear stores continue to display art and McGuffey, Second Street and the Bridge resist the tide, but the overall outlook is a bit different. Three galleries have shut their doors in the past six months, suggesting that currently Charlottesville is part of another sort of national trend.
