Blog Posts - Bluestone Vineyard

Bubbles Blog

10/17/2019

“I love bubbles, everybody loves the bubbles,” said the first sommelier we ever met while we were on a trip out in California on a Tuesday morning while we were enjoying our tasting. That sentence has stuck with me ever since and every time we open a bottle of sparkling wine I always think of that encounter.

Now, I know not everyone loves bubbles, but there is a lot of truth in the fact that sparkling wine is rather popular and has been for a long time. By now I’m sure you’ve come to the conclusion that bubbly wine is the theme of this weeks blog. There are a lot of different routes I could take this blog, but I’m going to stick to a few key things and also share an upcoming event that will be taking place at the vineyard soon, so read on!

Some of you may be asking yourself at this point, why is she using terms like sparkling or bubbles rather than use Champagne? I’m glad you asked! While it is common to use the term Champagne for all sparkling wine, there is actually a difference. All Champagne is sparkling, but not all sparkling wine is Champagne. You can only call a sparkling wine Champagne if it was made in Champagne, France, which is 90 miles northeast of Paris.

There are other types of sparkling wines found all over the world. Some examples include Cava from Spain, Prosecco from Italy, Cremant from various regions throughout France and even American Sparkling from the good ole US of A. Most of these are very affordable alternatives to true Champagne, especially if you just want to open up a bottle for no other occasion other than you want a glass (or two) of bubbles.

Which brings me to another point. Sparkling wine does not have to just be for special occasions! It can be for any day of the week. It is also an extremely food friendly pairing option with its high acidity and crisp flavors. Or when in doubt if you don't know what to pair with a dish, pair it with bubbles! I speak to the last point from experience (on more than one occasion).

Oh and did I mention that all of the types of sparkling wines mentioned above are made with different grapes depending on where they are from and different ways to make sparkling wine? Now, remember the upcoming event I mentioned earlier in the blog? On Sunday, November 3rd the vineyard will be hosting a Sparkling Wine Seminar in the Meeting House led by our winemaker, Lee Hartman. At that seminar attendees will learn more about sparkling wine and how it is made as well as try six styles of sparkling wine. Tickets are available by calling the vineyard. Reservations are required for this event, so don’t miss out, secure your tickets!

Thanks for tuning into this week's edition of Out of the Barrel. Cheers

October is Virginia Wine Month!

10/3/2019

Happy Fall everyone! That sounds like a cruel joke considering the first 3 days of this month have all been 90 degrees plus, but cooler weather is on the way! Do you know what is special about this month, regardless if it feels like the middle of summer? October is Virginia Wine Month!

According to virginiawine.org, this year Virginia Wine Month is celebrating 31 years since it was officially established in 1988. There are close to 300 wineries and 7 established American Viticulture Areas (or AVA for short) in Virginia. The wine industry in the state has changed drastically over the last four decades and so has the quality of wine. With twenty-four different varietals that grow in Virginia, there is no shortage of new wines to try!

What’s so special about Virginia Wine Month? Other than another reason to go and explore Virginia wine country, October is a magical time of year to see the fall foliage throughout the rolling hills of the state. As harvest is coming to a close for many vineyards, the leaves on the vines will also begin to show the changing of colors, which adds additional beauty to the vineyards and surrounding scenery.

Now, what are you waiting for?!? Grab some friends and go exploring! Along the way, be sure to stop and visit the crew here at Bluestone. The view is always beautiful on top of the hill, but there is something about visiting the vineyard in October that makes the trip a little extra special.

Thanks for tuning into this week's edition of Out of the Barrel. Cheers!

Where the Little Grape Grows

9/19/2019

Ever notice when you visit wineries in Virginia, or anywhere else in the U.S. for that matter, there is generally a theme to what grapes are grown in that region? On a recent trip I was able to explore the Finger Lakes region in New York and see that firsthand. There are grapes in that region that aren’t seen as often here and visa versa. But why? Well, there is a reason for that. In this blog post I’m going to go a little extra nerdy and share more on how climate has an effect as to what grapes grow best where and why.

Did you know that most grape growing regions are grown between the 30°-50° latitude both north and south? Anything outside of those latitudes are usually too extreme for grapes to survive. Virginia is roughly 37° N latitude, whereas the Finger Lakes is at about 42° N latitude. That may not seem like a big difference, but it is. The cooler climate regions don’t have nearly the growing season like we do here in Virginia. Just as Virginia doesn’t have the growing season that California does. For this blog though we will stick to the comparison of Virginia and New York, specifically the Finger Lakes region.

When my husband and I were in the Finger Lakes in late August, they were just starting to see verasion, which is about a month behind the vineyards in Virginia. If you recall, I did a blog post when we were seeing verasion in late July/early August. I follow a few vineyards on social media that are in the Finger Lakes and have seen how some are just now starting to harvest their Chardonnay, which we also harvested about a month earlier. Since the Finger Lakes region has a shorter growing season, the acidity is typically higher in the grapes and the sugars (brix) are generally lower, which gives less alcohol potential during fermentation.

Below is a chart to put into perspective how as sugars in the grapes increase after verasion, acidity then starts to decrease (specifically the bottom half of the chart).

Now, onto what types of grapes are grown in the Finger Lakes. You will see some reds, some really good reds as a matter of fact, but not many of the ones you find commonly here in Virginia. Mostly varietals like Pinot Noir and Blaufränkisch (Lemberger) thrive since they don’t require a long and warm growing season like Cabernet Sauvignon or Petit Verdot. To flip the coin, so to speak, grapes like Pinot Noir are uncommon here in Virginia because the grape is very thin skinned and does not like hot weather. It does best in climates that have long, cooler growing seasons. One red grape you will see commonly both in Virginia and Finger Lakes is Cabernet Franc and although both regions produce beautiful wines, the styles are quite different.

Their white varietals also differ from the ones seen here in Virginia. Some of the most common whites in the Finger Lakes are Riesling, Gewurztraminer, and Pinot Gris. Those wines are usually more acidic and are lighter bodied. You will also see both Vidal Blanc and Chardonnay like you do here in Virginia, but those tend to be lighter and Vidal Blanc is also used to make Ice Wine.

This blog post has definitely been a little nerdier than previous posts, but it was a topic I get asked on a lot in the tasting room and felt it would be a good one to cover. Thanks for tuning into this week's edition of Out of the Barrel. Cheers!

Bring in the Fruit: Harvest 2019

9/5/2019

It’s the most wonderful time of the year! I bet a handful of you who just read that, either sang it out loud or in your head. No, I’m not talking about Christmas (although that will also be here before too long), I’m talking about harvest season! Harvest is here once again and looks to be a good one! Here at Bluestone we have already started picking some of our grapes with more to come.

So far for estate fruit, from properties at both our tasting room location and the patch of vines you see on the way in, we have harvested Chardonnay and Golden Muscat. The total for Chardonnay was 18.5 tons and 2.8 of those tons will be for our sparkling Chardonnay (more on that in a future blog!). We did share three tons of the Chardonnay with Blenheim Vineyards, which is just south of Charlottesville. As for the Golden Muscat we brought in a total of 14.9 tons! That’s a lot of future Moscato!

Chardonnay waiting to be processed.

Golden Muscat waiting to be taken down to the crush pad.

Golden Muscat looking delicious!

Lee Hartman, winemaker, weighs each bin to keep an accurate count.

Currently not all of our wine is estate grown so we work with other local vineyards to bring in other grapes like Petit Manseng and Viognier. Recently we brought in a total of four tons of Petit Manseng from both Lovingston Winery (located in Nelson County) and Silver Creek (near Wintergreen). Each vineyard we got roughly two tons from. We also get Viognier from Silver Creek, which will probably be at the vineyard by the time this is published.

I asked our winemaker, Lee, what he thought would be coming in next and he said that more than likely Merlot will be ready early next week. Both from Silver Creek and our estate, including the first harvest from a neighbor’s vineyard that Bluestone has managed since planting in 2015. As of now, Lee also said everything is coming in beautifully and the fruit is showing good sugar and acidity. He also mentioned that last week with the Chardonnay and Golden Muscat that was brought in was the biggest one day harvest we’ve had and it took 3 days to process the fruit, which comes out to about a third of the production for Bluestone.

Crushed and destemmed golden muscat grapes.

Owner, Curt Hartman, working to crush and destemm the grapes.

Grape juice after it has been through the press.

Lee dumping chardonnay grapes into press.

There is still a lot of fruit to harvest but the Vidal Blanc coming up to the tasting room and the Cabernet Franc and Chambourcin about half a mile before you get to Bluestone is still on the vines, but not for long! Don’t forget to keep checking our Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter to see all of the things happening at the vineyard, including harvest days!

Vidal Blanc

Chambourcin

Thanks for tuning into this week's edition of Out of the Barrel! Cheers!

What is a Vertical Tasting?

8/15/2019

What on earth is a vertical tasting? You may be thinking one of two things: yes, I know exactly what you’re talking about or no, I have no idea. Do you do a handstand while you taste wine? Do you go up stairs as you taste each wine? Is it a magical tasting designed by unicorns? Well, it is fairly straightforward and it is, in a way, magical.

A vertical tasting is where the same wine, either a blend or single varietal, has 2 or more vintages to taste back to back. For example a vertical tasting might include Cabernet Franc from 2012, 2013 and 2014 from the same vineyard. What is the significance of doing a vertical tasting? Well, I’m glad you asked!

Vertical tastings can give the guest a bit of a glimpse of a particular vintage. Such as how much rain or lack thereof, how hot or cool a season was, etc. Let’s use two recent vintages for example: 2017 and 2018. 2017 was an AMAZING vintage. There wasn’t much more that could have made this vintage absolutely perfect. The weather was perfect and harvest took place at just the right time. Now, let’s look at 2018, pretty much the complete opposite due to the excessive amount of rain we saw and also how cool of a season it was as well.

Back in late April, we held a vertical tasting in our Meeting House. There were three stations with seven different wines and 21 labels total. We had a variety of whites, reds and our estate grown dessert wine, Blue Ice. Below is a list of the wines we had at the event.

Vidal Blanc
Chardonnay (oak aged)
Petit Manseng
Merlot
Cabernet Sauvignon
Houndstooth
Blue Ice

Missed the event? No worries! There are a select few of the wines that are still available for bottle purchase in the tasting room. You can even do a mini vertical in the tasting room on your next visit! Currently on our tasting list we have both the 2013 and 2014 Petit Verdot. We re-released the 2013 earlier this spring and guests are able to see what one years difference did with the same grape.

Thanks for tuning into this week’s edition of Out of the Barrel. Cheers

Are the grapes doing magic tricks?

8/1/2019

If you’ve visited the vineyard in the last couple weeks, you may have noticed that some of the grape bunches have started to change color. No, this isn't a magic trick the grapes are preforming to impress vineyard visitors. It is simple science and part of the grape life cycle called veraison. Veraison is the onset of ripening and is signaled by the changing colors of the grapes.

Red grapes, like Chambourcin for example, will slowly start to turn from bright green to a deep, dark red. Some bunches will change quicker than others and certain grape varietals also take longer to change color and ripen, such as Cabernet Sauvignon and Petit Verdot. Not only will the grapes change color, this time frame is also when the grapes will naturally start to sweeten. White grapes also go through this process, although not as obvious or magical. Instead of turning another color, white varietals become translucent.

These images of the same chambourcin bunches were taken just three days apart and you can clearly see how the grapes have ripened.

Before veraison, the grapes are hard and very acidic. Once the grapes start to ripen, the acidity starts to lessen as the sweetness increases. You can also feel the difference as the grapes become squishy and you can pinch them between your fingers and they burst (just like in the videos below).

If you haven’t seen this beautiful change in the vineyard, come by within the next few weeks and see them for yourself! While videos of squishing grapes is cool, please do not do this when you visit the vineyard. One, it makes your hands very sticky and two, we need those ripened grapes to make wine. We are about a month or so away from the beginning of harvest, which is a very exciting time of the year! Our Chardonnay grapes are usually the first to come in followed by the other whites and reds will begin coming in thereafter.

Behind the Scenes: Bottling Day

7/24/2019

This week for Out of the Barrel we are going to go behind the scenes and take a closer look at this process. It takes a village to run a vineyard and bottling day is just one of the many pieces of the puzzle.

We have partnered with a company who brings in a complete bottling operation on a semi truck a few times a year when we have large amounts of wine to bottle. Our most recent bottling was of 7 different wines that totaled to over 1,600 cases! With 12 bottles to a case, needless to say it was quite a long day. However, with the truck being as loud as it is while everything is in motion, and for the stretches of time with each amount of bottling, you get to jam out to your favorite music or catch up on your most podcast binge.

The work isn’t glamorous by any means. Almost everyone who is at their station is doing a fast paced, constant and repetitive motion for long stretches of time. No need to get a workout in on bottling day depending on the station you are at! You get quite the workout whether it be by dumping the empty bottles on the conveyor belt, filling the cases with wine once they are filled, corked and labeled or stacking the full cases on the palate. For the time I was there, another Bluestone employee and I were helping to fill the cases with wine bottles to send down and be stacked on the palate.

Bottling day is one of the many parts of the vineyard that gives you more of an appreciation for how the wine got from the aging vessel to the bottle and all the little odds and ends that happen in between to get the wine ready for sale either in the tasting room or distribution.

For more of a glimpse of bottling day, check out the video above that our Marketing Coordinator, Emily, put together. It is quite the setup and is rather neat to see, especially from her point of view where she was able to go into the back side of the bottling truck and get a close up of the bottles in the various stages of the process.

Thanks for tuning in for this week’s edition of Out of the Barrel! Cheers!

A little history lesson on 4th of July!

7/4/2019

Happy 4th of July!

Happy 4th friends! While there are certain things that first come to mind when one thinks of July 4th, such as a sea of red, white and blue, bbq outings and most importantly celebrating our great nation, there is something you might not have thought about. For this edition of Out of the Barrel, we’re going to add a little twist and talk about a historical wine event that happened not too long ago.

In 1976, the same year as America’s bicentennial anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence, there was an event that turned the wine world upside down and put U.S. wine on the map. That event was The Judgement of Paris. Steven Spurrier put together the blind tasting and had 9 of the top wine critics, sommeliers and writers from France to be a part of the tasting. The tasting was simple, the wines of France went up against the wines of California to see who would win. No one ever thought that the wines of California (which is where the U.S. wines were chosen from) could ever match up to the legendary wines of France. By now you guys can probably see where I’m going with this. To the upset of the French, both the red and white wine winners came from the Napa Valley in California. For the red, Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars 1973 Cabernet Sauvignon and the 1973 Chateau Montelena Chardonnay for the white.

There is a movie based off The Judgment of Paris called Bottle Shock. It shares more about Steven Spurrier and the winery Chateau Montelena, which was where the winning Chardonnay came from. Overall the movie does a nice job of sharing about The Judgement of Paris, but like all movies that are based off of a true story, there are a few things in the film that were adjusted/left out. It is still an excellent wine movie and I highly recommend checking it out!

Another recommendation if you want to learn more about this legendary tasting is a documentary called Somm 3, which features Steven Spurrier in the film. I won’t give too much away, but he shares about the tasting from his point of view and how it influenced the world of wine afterwards. There was also something in Somm 3 that caught my eye while I was watching the film one evening.

During a scene where the crew was filming Spurrier in his home there was a bottle on the counter that I found interesting. After rewinding the scene a few times, I paused it and went up to the screen to investigate. There was something familiar about the bottle and after looking it over and later getting in touch with the director of the film, the bottle on the counter was indeed Bluestone’s 2014 Estate Grown Chardonnay, which was in the Governor's Case in 2016. The wines from the Governor’s Case are sent all over the world to wine experts, writers, etc and to our knowledge is how one of our bottles would have ended up in England, which is where Spurrier lives. How cool is that!

That’s our fun wine history lesson for this week's edition of Out of the Barrel. Whether your July 4th is filled with wine, bbq, family and friends, or simply just enjoying the day, have a wonderful and safe holiday! Cheers!

What's In A Glass?

6/20/2019

We are going to dive right into wine glassware, specifically Riedel glassware!

Each spring, Bluestone hosts a Riedel seminar that has more varietal specific glasses and a representative shares not only about the company, but why the glasses make a difference for your wine. For the seminars there are two different white glasses and two different red glasses.

Now you may be asking yourself, “Wait, there are more than just the standard white and red wine glass?” Yes, yes there are! You may also be asking yourself “does the shape of a glass actually make a difference?” Once, again the answer is yes, yes it does. The thin rim of the glass as well as the shape of the bowl are the two main differences that separate these from standard tasting glasses, such as the ones we use in our tasting room that have our logo. Riedel glasses enhance the flavors and aromas of the wine.

At our most recent seminar this past April, attendees used the Performance series glassware which consisted of a Riesling, Oaked Chardonnay, Cabernet and Pinot Noir glass. We used our 2018 Estate Grown Vidal Blanc in the Riesling glass, 2017 Estate Grown Chardonnay in the Oaked Chardonnay glass, 2014 Cadenza (56% Cabernet Sauvignon/44% Petit Verdot blend) in the Cabernet glass and the 2016 Steep Face (Estate Grown Chambourcin) in the Pinot Noir glass. Attendees were able to smell and taste the difference of using the Riedel glasses compared to a regular wine glass with each of the glasses and the wines in them.

Still not convinced? While we currently only have the Riedel seminar once a year, you can visit the tasting room and upgrade your tasting with either the standard white or red Riedel glass for an additional $6.50 and you get to take the glass home!

Thanks for tuning in to this weeks blog post! Cheers!

What's New At Bluestone??

6/6/2019

Thank you for following along with Bluestone Vineyard! Whether you have visited with us since we opened in 2011 or just now finding us, thank you. Your support has given us the opportunity to continue to grow and better serve you, our guests. Among many new updates and changes around the vineyard over the past few years, we are excited to share our new blog called Out of the Barrel! What better way to kick off the new blog than sharing about our new tasting room and the things we have added to enhance your experience here at Bluestone!

Now, here’s the question, have you been to our new tasting room yet? If not, what are you waiting for??

In October 2018 we officially moved the Tasting Room to the lower level of the Meeting House. With more indoor seating and a welcoming lounge area by the fireplace, the new space has been very well received, especially in the colder months. During the warmer months, our outdoor patio offers plenty of options to sit in the shade or soak up the sun. The Tasting Room is open until 8 p.m. on Friday nights (with the exception of Toast the Weekend events, the Tasting Room will close at 6 p.m.)

If you’re worried about whether you will still get to enjoy the views, don’t worry! The views of the Allegheny Mountains from our new patio are still stunning. With a large and spacious patio, it wouldn’t be complete without several firepits and an outdoor fireplace. Who doesn’t love sitting around a fire on the cooler days with friends and wine in hand? Could it get any better? Oh, but it does!

Early in 2019 we introduced warm bread and olive oil to our “small bites” menu. We have partnered with Staff of Life Bread Co. out of Broadway, VA to supply us with delicious demi-loaves. We will be incorporating more light food options to our menu in the near future as well. Guests are still more than welcome to bring in their own outside food.

Another addition for our guests to experience while visiting Bluestone are flight options! We still offer our traditional tastings at the bar with our knowledgeable and friendly staff members, but for guests who prefer to do tastings at their own pace or are with a larger group, flight options are a fantastic way to go! You can build your own flight or one of our staff members can guide you to help build a flight suited to your tastes.

Thanks for reading our new blog Out of the Barrel! Cheers!

Photo of Ranee Bartley

Author

Raneé Bartley
Tasting Room Manager

Raneé started at Bluestone Vineyard in August 2015. She thinks writing a blog about wine will be a fun and educational addition to Bluestone Vineyard. Her passion for wine has grown over the years and she is currently in pursuit to become a Certified Sommelier through the Court of Master Sommeliers. While at Bluestone, she enjoys sharing about wine with guests in the tasting room.

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