“Vigor” is a term that comes up a lot in discussions of Virginia winemaking. It has to do with how energetically vines grow, based on the kind of soil they’re in and how much sun they get. It’s not always a good thing for a plant to be vigorous—at least as far as the quality of the grapes is concerned.
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Two-thirds of the wine we drink is Virginia wine,” says Glass House’s proprietor Jeff Sanders. “We drink it because we like a lot of it and because we’re learning. But we’re slowly drifting into wine from regions that have attributes that are Virginia-like.” He and his wife Michelle will officially open their Free Union winery by the end of the year. |
But there’s little doubt that vigor is an admirable—possibly necessary—quality in a vigneron. We present Exhibit A, Jeff Sanders. C-VILLE first met him nearly three years ago when he and his wife Michelle were fresh into their adventure to build a winery and grow grapes in Free Union. Now, as they schedule a grand opening for their Glass House Winery for the end of the year, Jeff can reliably be found everywhere at once as he prunes the six acres of vines, installs the geothermal floor in the 2,000-square foot copper-tiled winery, and learns the craft of winemaking from his consultant, longtime Virginia winemaker Brad McCarthy. Oh, and he’s also designing and managing the construction of a tropical conservatory that will abut the winery. “It’s a hobby of mine,” Jeff explains about the banana trees, cinnamon plants and other lovely exotics that he’s been growing in a greenhouse (that he built himself, naturally). “It will be interesting next to the winery and tasting room. People can enjoy a tropical setting in February or March.”
“He doesn’t do less than three things at a time,” Michelle says of her always-active husband. To which he replies, “I worked in an office for too long. I like visible results.”
Not that Michelle sits idle while the Tasmanian Devil stirs up dust clouds around her. Glass House is a family operation, and Michelle manages the office work and the ordering. Such decisions as opting for glass closures (rather than the traditional cork or the increasingly popular screw cap closures) resulted in days of research and calls. On top of which, Michelle is a chocolatier. She’ll be selling her sweets at the winery once it’s opened, and hopes to perfect a dark chocolate candy with a wine-ganache center. Don’t these people ever sleep?
The wine industry divides roughly into two camps: Those who are all about the wine and the wine only, and those who want to also create a wine “lifestyle,” both for themselves and for their customers. The Sanderses fall into the second camp. Their intensity reflects the decisions that led them to put aside their plan to move around the world in three- to five-year intervals and instead to lay roots in Free Union. “We said, ‘Is this something we’d stick with and do?’ If not, then, ‘No, don’t do it,’” says Michelle. “But we love the area and have faith in Virginia wine.”
Glass House will release about 400 cases in its first year, starting with a soft opening in June when limited supplies of Viognier and Pinot Gris will be available. They plan to bottle a Meritage blend, and Jeff looks enthusiastically towards making Barbera, too.
Tough financial times hit Delfosse
Local winery owners Claude and Genevieve Delfosse avoided a foreclosure auction of their 318-acre Nelson County property on March 30 with a Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing in the Western District Bankruptcy Court four days earlier, according to trustee Stephen Scarce. Claude Delfosse, reached for comment, said it was “not the winery” that had filed the application. He referred all questions to his attorney, who did not immediately return calls. Chapter 11 aims at reorganizing debt and letting a business re-emerge as healthy. Delfosse said the “winery is open for business as usual.”
