Announcement to our VIP Members

The Monthly VIP Club Wine Pick-up Event

This is a notice for our monthly VIP Club "Pick-up Party" where two of you can meet our winemaker, Alan Kinne, and talk with him as he pours your monthly selections and enjoy the beauty of the countryside.

It’s that time of year where we move both our tastings and our monthly pick-up event indoors due to the chilly winter weather. For this month’s event Alan will be pouring samples of the 2009 Rubiana & 2010 Viognier.

We are always excited when one of our guests decides to join the Chrysalis Vineyards VIP Wine Club but we were beyond thrilled when we found out one of our newest members was Guillermo Manoatl, the owner of Picante Restaurant right here in Chantilly, Virginia. Picante has been serving the Northern Virginia area since 1994. At Picante they embrace the traditional creed of Mexican cooking with every meal they prepare; their objective is not only to create something that will satisfy your appetite, but something to spark you passion, fill your spirit, and leave you with "corazon contento" (a warm heart).

Guillermo, after tasting through our wines, assured us (with great flair I might add) that several of them would pair perfectly with the traditional Mexican cuisine that his restaurant specializes in and has become so well known for in Northern Virginia.

For our February Pick-Up Event, we decided to show the rest of you just how right Guillermo is about Latin flavors being a great match for our wines. We’re excited to be serving up bowls of Chef Guillermo’s Mexican Tortilla Soup, along with the traditional side of avocado, cheese and tortilla strips. Be sure not to miss out on this very special offering!

Of course Kelda Kinne and the Tasting Room staff will also be on hand to provide the hospitality to which you have become accustomed.

Please join us at the winery building on Sunday, February 26 between 2 p.m. and 4:00 p.m. Because space is limited, we are closing the event to the first 150 VIP Club members who respond to this invitation. Please let us know by Tuesday, February 21, if you will attend. Simply call Kelda at 540-687-8222, ext. 206 or email KKinne@ChrysalisWine.com. RSVP quickly because these events always fill up quickly.

**** Please do not hit "Reply" to this newsletter ****
**** Call Kelda or email her using the link above for reservations only ****

The 10th Annual Hottest Cool Jazz Festival
May 19 & 20, 10 a.m. - 6 p.m.

Hey, get hip, daddy-O. Jazz - yeah, man, come hear 'em beat it out at Chrysalis Vineyards. Be cool cats on the lawn; slide your jibe, down some wine, some bread and cheese - now that's in the groove. Great wines, breathtaking views, food and jazz on the patio ... what could be better!?

It is hard to imagine more breathtaking views than Locksley Estate in the spring. Add to this, incredible jazz from the areas hottest bands; delicious cheese, chocolates, and other specialty foods from Virginia's most highly regarded producers; exquisite jewelry and artifacts from top-notch designers; and fine art from renowned artists, then you have the makings of not just a festival—rather, an experience. Factor in that you are at Chrysalis Vineyards, the world's largest grower of Norton, The Real American Grape!^® and you truly have a celebration.

Admission is $20 at the door, $15 in advance. 2 free complimentary tickets for our VIP Club members.

Email Kelda Kinne at KKinne@ChrysalisWine.com or call 540-687-8222, ext. 206.

Chrysalis Vineyards Out and About ...

Chrysalis Vineyards is taking “the show on the road”. Check out the two off-site events we have planned for February and see if you can make it to one or both!

Join us at Forlano's Market on Wednesday, February 8 where Chrysalis Vineyards will be the featured winery for their Monthly Wine Tasting Event. This event is scheduled every second Wednesday of the month from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. and we’re excited to have been invited! Come just to relax at the end of the day with wine and an appetizer or stay and enjoy their full dinner menu, which changes nightly. Please visit Forlano’s website www.ForlanosMarket.com to see their menu and visit them on Facebook for details about this month's tasting. Don't miss this opportunity to come support not only Chrysalis Vineyards but also this great local restaurant.

You are invited to stop by the E-Street Cinema ("Best Movie Theatre" (2011) - THE WASHINGTON POST (EXPRESS NIGHT OUT) and meet Jennifer McCloud (owner) and Alan Kinne (winemaker) of Chrysalis Vineyards ("Best Vineyard" (2010) - THE WASHINGTON POST (EXPRESS NIGHT OUT) on Saturday, February 11 from 4:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m. They will be sampling their 2009 Estate Bottled Norton . E-Street Theatre recently started a wine-by-the-glass program at their theatre and has chosen Chrysalis Vineyards 2009 Estate Bottled Norton to be one of their featured wines. That’s right folks - you can now go out to the movies and enjoy a glass of Chrysalis Vineyards Norton with your box of popcorn and a great movie. Please check out their website, www.landmarktheatres.com, for more info about the show times and… we’ll see you at the movies!

Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, and so forth

Current Wine Releases and Tasting Notes

On our website, we maintain a complete list of all currently available wines, pricing and tasting notes. Click for details.

VIP Club at Chrysalis Vineyards

Receive a 15% discount on ALL purchases at Chrysalis Vineyards; enjoy our Private Reserve White and Private Reserve Red, made EXPRESSLY for our VIP Club members, be our guest for the VIP Club members' Recognition Party and much more. Click for details.

Groups and Facility Rentals

Hosting an event or having a wedding? Planning a group tour? Click for details.

This Month’s Guest Chef

Why do so many people automatically assume that Mexican food is better suited to beer than wine? Well, you're probably thinking, Mexican food is spicy, and beer is refreshing—case closed. The problem with that thinking is that it’s not necessary true. Good Mexican food can be spicy but it is has great depth and complexity and that makes it an ideal cuisine to pair with wine.

Who better to expand upon this thought then this month’s featured Chef/Owner of Picante Restaurant, Guillermo Manoatl. Here are some of the tips that he shared with us:

Pair wine with the sauce, not the meat, poultry or fish on the plate. The classics of Mexican food are always defined by their sauces.

Start your wine-sauce pairing by focusing on the chile featured in the sauce:

Sauces that feature fresh green chiles typically pair best with white wines.

Sauces that feature dried red chiles typically pair best with red wines.

Sauces that feature tomatillos as background to the chiles typically pair best with fruity, un-oaked Chardonnays or our Albariño.

Opposites attract. For example, fatty foods with acidic wines make a wonderful pairing (ever try Champagne with triple-cream cheeses? Yum!). Super spicy foods pair nicely with a slightly sweet wine with lower alcohol.

Match a wine's acidity to the characteristic lime, sour orange and fruit vinegar found in any classic Mexican sauces. Good acidity in a wine is frequently appreciated.

Match a wine's fruitiness to the characteristic fruitiness of many classic Mexican sauces: chiles are botanically classified as fruits (clearest in the flavors of dried chiles), but many Mexican sauces weave other fruits in as well, such as plantain, pineapple or mango. Matching these fruits with an off-dry wine works beautifully.

Match a wine's fruitiness to the spiciness of the sauce. Spiciness doesn't detract from a wine's flavor, unless (1) the wine's fruitiness doesn't match the spice, or (2) your palate is overwhelmed by the spiciness because you're not used to it. Matching fruitiness to spice doesn't mean matching sweetness to spice. Pairing sweeter wine with spicy food can lack the finesse offered by using wine rich in fruit, which Chrysalis Vineyards fruit-forward wines exemplify.

Whatever you do, have fun and don't be afraid to experiment. Try new things! Wine and Mexican food pairing should be a happy relationship where the wine improves the food, and the food improves the wine. Also, don't worry too much if you hit some bumps along the road—maybe not every wine pairing will be perfect, but don't let that stop you from trying again. And sometimes the beer does taste pretty good, too. Have fun!

Report from the Tasting Room

Musings and observations from wine tasting station #4, during the summer time and inside the winery in front of the "tanks" during the cold season. There is a reason why I preferred these stations. I use the background of the Norton grape vines during my wine tasting presentations. Later in the year, as the Norton grapes have reached their full ripeness, I "harvest" some grapes and use them as "props" during my wine tasting presentations. I always find people surprised and inquisitive when I squeeze the juice out of a grape to demonstrate how different the Norton grape is from other red grapes. This, of course, sets the stage to talk a little more about the Norton grape, its history, its qualities and the fact that the Chrysalis Vineyards has the largest Norton grape plantings in the world. This is especially true when I have people taste three, sometimes four, different Norton wines back-to-back. During the colder months when wine tasting stations are set up inside the winery, I use the backdrop of the stainless steel tanks as well as the oak barrels to explain the full cycle of "crafting" great wines. I regularly hear comments during my wine presentation that "there is not ONE bad wine” in our line-up of wine styles. My objective of course is that people visiting Chrysalis Vineyards come away with a positive and lasting experience and singing glorious hymns about our wine. OK, I am a bit of a romantic!

But, this is only part of my observation. Behind the scenes are real reasons Chrysalis Vineyards produces some outstanding wines....winemaker Alan Kinne and his strapping young, sometimes kilted assistant, Brenden. They are the reason we’re know for our excellent wines. Their hard work and wine making craftsmanship makes it easy for this grumpy ol’ wine taster, and I hope I also speak for Pat and all my other colleagues as well, makes it easy to showcase Chrysalis Vineyards wines.

For some time now I have been thinking about starting a wine blog about the Norton wine. At the beginning of January, I started my own wine blog "thegrumpynortonian". My objective is to start a community of Norton wine enthusiasts wherever they might be. The comments I received thus far are very encouraging and I sense that the full story of Norton is beginning to unfold that even Todd Kliman may find surprising. In the meantime, my friends, I lift my glass of 2005 Norton Estate wine, WoW, in a Riedel Norton wine glass of course and toast to you, my friends.

Remember...In VinoVeritas
Ed aka the grumpy nortonian
Tasting Room Associate

Report from the Winemaker

Someday it won’t be a cold and gloomy day like today. Let’s hope when we start bottling the days will be sunny and warm. As many of you know, Chrysalis Vineyards doesn’t own a bottling line. We aren’t quite large enough to justify the huge cost of buying one (or the space they take in storing one either). So, we hire a mobile bottling line to come in and bottle our wines. The use of someone else’s bottling line is quite common in the wine industry. There are nearly 200 wineries in Virginia, less than 20% own a bottling line.

But hiring a mobile bottling line takes a lot of extra coordination. First, you have to book your dates months in advance of actually bottling. For example, we already have our bottling dates set into May. In a couple of weeks, the remainder of our bottlings for the year will be penciled in later in the summer. Second, once you have your dates set, the winemaker has to make sure the wines are ready to bottle on the specified dates. For example, we will be bottling our 2011 Albariño and Mariposa on February 20. Both wines have to be ready to go and all of the bottling material has to be on hand before the bottling date; that means corks (ordered two weeks before bottling), capsules (because we use custom capsules, they have to be ordered up to twelve weeks before bottling), labels (we have to change the vintage and UPC code on the labels every year) take over a month and bottles sometimes have to be ordered months in advance because the bottle company only produces certain bottles certain times of the year. It’s all about logistics.

Oh, the most important part of the bottling (besides the wine) at Chrysalis Vineyards is the people who bottle the wine. We use VIP volunteers. It makes for a lot of fun the days we bottle to have VIP members helping—people who really care about the wine. They keep the full time staff on their toes. Do you want to be a part? Contact Alan (AKinne@ChrysalisWine.com) or Brenden (brenden_mcmahon@hotmail.com) (Brenden’s email has an underscore between his first and last name) and be part of crew. The lunches aren’t bad either (maybe with a glass of wine…)!

Alan Kinne, Winemaker

Report from the Vineyard

The time is almost here. Are you registered yet? Most of the space is taken up for our vineyard seminar on February 25, but we have a few slots still open. If you want to learn how to prune like a pro—and learn about how we grow Norton here at Chrysalis Vineyards—contact Alan (AKinne@ChrysalisWine.com).

In February we finish up pruning the Norton and take a second round of cuttings for our greenhouse to propagate Norton vines as replacements in our vineyard and to sell to other Norton lovers around the country. We usually take about 20,000 to 30,000 cuttings every winter with about 75% of those cuttings becoming vines to be planted later that year. By the end of the month, if the weather is right, we might start to prune the vines at Hollin. Those vines are much tenderer than the Norton at Locksley so we have to wait as long as possible in the winter—and sometimes into spring—before we prune Hollin. By delaying pruning, the vines are delayed in budding out and that helps in avoiding spring frost damage like we had in 2010. When we do start pruning at Hollin we start with the Nebbiolo (it has the longest growing season), followed by the Tannat, Petit Verdot, and Tinta Cao. The two white varieties (Viognier and Albariño) are pruned last. Last year was one of the most difficult growing seasons for grapes ever in Virginia. By carefully pruning our vines, we had a head start on a good year for Chrysalis Vineyards.

Alan Kinne, Winemaker

Greetings from the countryside! It’s been kinda cold and nasty over the past few days, but this morning the sun was shining bright and the snow had disappeared. The chickens are thankful, I’m sure, because they’re now able to walk free and hang out at their favorite spot—on and under the smoke tree bush’s low branches right outside my kitchen window. (For the past few days they’ve been “snow-bound” in the chicken tractor. While some brave souls ventured out the doors onto the ground, they were hemmed in by the snow and forced to stay underneath the chicken tractor, squabbling and jockeying for space.) But I hear the boys’ cock-a-doodle dooing now as I write this sentence, which means they’re out strutting around in their never-ending quest to impress the girls. I must say that the sounds of the chickens and cows have become quintessential soothing elements of my life on the farm, which I wouldn’t trade now for anything in the world.

Changing gears… I’m really looking forward to our February VIP Club “Pick-up Party”. For those VIP Club members who haven’t participated, you’re really missing out on a lot of entertaining fun. We always have some delicious morsels to pair with the current month’s wine selections, and you get a chance to sit down and get to know other VIP Club members and chat with Alan, Kelda and moi (most often, unless I have to be out of town). And this time of year the smells, sites and sensory “inputs” of the cellar are most attractive.

So, plan on reserving a spot before it fills up for February 26, and come enjoy the camaraderie and pairing of our wines with a sample of some of the best traditional Mexican cuisine available in the mid-Atlantic area—from Picante Restaurant, home of the Real Taco... I understand!

Jennifer McCloud Chrysalis Vineyards 23876 Champe Ford Road Middleburg VA 20117 email: McCloud@ChrysalisWine.com telephone: 540-687-8222 website: http://www.ChrysalisWine.com