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.

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.

For this month’s event Alan will be pouring samples of the 2011 Mariposa and the 2009 Petit Verdot.

Our featured culinary guest this month is Chef Mario Barreda. Chef Barreda is the Owner/Chef of Paella To Go! Catering Services and we could not be more excited to be working with him. He will be here on Saturday, May 5 offering up small tastes of Paella under the cover of Jenni’s Pavilion. Since the Chef will be providing a small sampler of food, we encourage you to bring your own picnic basket of goodies to enjoy on the evening of the event.

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

The May Pick-Up Event is going to be special. We have decided that May is the great month to move our monthly pick up events from Sunday afternoons in the winery to Saturday nights in the early evening. Join us on the lawn outside the tasting room on Saturday, May 5 from 6:00 p.m. until 8:00 p.m. We are closing the food sampling portion of event to the first 200 VIP Club members who respond to this invitation - no exceptions! Please let us know by Monday, April 30, 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 ****

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.

Memorial Day Weekend Barbeque!

What better way to spend the Official Opening Day of the Summer Season (aka Memorial Day Weekend) than at Chrysalis Vineyards!?! This year we are offering up a special treat by hosting Chef/Owner Mike Haene of the German Gourmet.

Mike and his crew will be set up under Jenni’s Pavilion from Noon until 5pm and will be grilling up a wonderful array of BBQ delicacies to purchase. All you have to do is show up with your blanket, sunscreen and appetite and we will have everything else covered.

So dig out your flip flops, grab your friends and head out to Chrysalis Vineyards for some amazing wine and delicious BBQ!

To top it off, this is just the start of a delicious summer at Chrysalis Vineyards. The German Gourmet will be grilling brats every Saturday all summer!

This Month’s Guest Chef

Chef Mario Barreda was born in Venezuela to a Venezuelan mother and a Basque father. His formal training was in the Basque city of San Sebastian, Spain and Southern France. These influences created his unique culinary style, a fusion of Caribbean, Spanish and South American flavors and ingredients.

Specializing in Cochinillo Asado, Paellas, Ceviches and Tapas, Chef Mario prefers to work personally with each client to create a menu that meets their vision. He has 25 years of experience in the catering business working for some of the premier caterers in and around Washington D.C.

One of his most unforgettable experiences occurred in Spain when he had the opportunity to work for the Tour de España. He was part of a team of chefs that traveled with the bicycle riders around Spain for one month. This required cooking paella almost every day. For the large venues in Madrid, Bilbao, and Valencia, Mario and his team cooked paella for up to 2000 people!

Meet Mario at www.Paellatogo.com or join us on Saturday, May 5 at the pick-up party to try his Paella. What a great way to kick off the summer season!

Report from the Tasting Room

Hello once again my friends, Ed here reporting from my favorite wine tasting station. One of the most interesting and often inspiring moments during wine tastings...for me...is when I give a wine tasting presentation to just one person and the discussion quickly centers on the Norton wine. Just a couple of weeks ago I had the good fortune to talk about the Norton grape with a gentleman visiting from Baltimore. He heard about Chrysalis Vineyards Norton because he read the "book." He was very much impressed with our Norton wines, especially the Locksley. However, the most interesting part for me was when he told me about a winery in the Texas hill country, the Stone House Winery, which also makes a Norton wine.

Curious as usual, I did some research that evening and called the owner of the winery, Angela Downer Moench, the next day. She told me that she had been growing Norton for quite a few years and according to my Baltimore friend, her wines are very good. She offered to send me some of her Norton once I told her about my experiences with Norton wines. I will share my experience with you as soon as we have tasted her wines.

My objective, of course, is to know the different Norton wine styles and share these experiences with you. As many of you may be aware of or having been listening to our wine tasting presentations, there are quite a few vineyards across the country that make Norton wines. My objective is to get to know them all. My wine blog, "thegrumpynortonian," is intended to bring the Norton wine makers and Norton wine enthusiasts together and to share their experiences of the real American grape with all.

Just the other day I became aware of a new book that will be available shortly in bookstores. Its title: Beyond Jefferson's Vines: The evolution of Quality Wine in Virginia. Norton, according to the author, is playing a prominent role in the in the quality and the evolution of Virginia wines. In the meantime my friends, I am having a glass of Chrysalis Vineyards Norton Estate in a Riedel Norton (Hermitage) wine glass...absolutely delightful.

In vino veritas,

Ed Lohman
Tasting Room Associate

Report from the Winemaker

Chrysalis Vineyards is once again a leader in wine quality in Virginia. After months of planning, discussion and market research Alan and I came to the conclusion that Virginia winemaking is ready for a peripheral service industry. This will allow improved technology and techniques to be widely available to the East Coast for the first time. The first of these peripheral services being offered is mobile crossflow filtration through Mid-Atlantic Crossflow LLC.

Crossflow has three main benefits over “dead end” filtration with cellulose pads or diatomaceous earth filters. First is that crossflow is faster than “dead end” filtration which allows the winemakers more time to dream up delicious wines for you. Second is that the process is more gentle on the wine itself preserving more of the aromatic character and reducing “bottle shock”. Finally crossflow dramatically reduces the amount of product loss giving us more wine to bottle for you to enjoy.

Even more important than Chrysalis Vineyards utilizing this improved technology to better our own wines is that Jenni’s support is allowing this equipment to be available to all of our nearby colleagues to better our industry as a whole. As our industry continues to grow at a fantastic rate more peripheral services will be required and I plan on expanding to meet that need with the support of everyone here at Chrysalis Vineyards.

Brenden McMahon
Cellar Master/Assistant Winemaker

Report from the Vineyard

It’s time for another vineyard seminar. The first one was a big hit (you should have been here!). Of course, there were some grumblings about the wind. Wow, it was probably the windiest day of the year. But the Norton Port samples after the pruning demonstration warmed up everyone.

Mark you calendars for Saturday, June 9. This seminar is going to be about canopy management. Participants will learn how we shoot thin and position our Norton vines as well as cluster thin. These are all critical steps for producing high quality grapes for wine. Norton is notorious for its wild growth (it is the wild vine, after all).

Contact Alan Kinne at AKinne@ChrysalisWine.com for more information and to sign up.

Alan Kinne
Winemaker & Vineyard Manager

Wow, the growing season is in full swing now, and the farm activities are a cookin’! All the grapevines are shooting up (especially after the recent rain) and the calves are being born left and right. The greenhouse, too, has put forth thousands of new Norton grapevines (20,000, as a matter of fact), and we’re bit by bit becoming the go-to source for commercial Norton vineyard development (in addition to being the standard-bearer for Norton wines.)

The vines are just beautiful! As those of you who’ve read our newsletters over the years know, spring is my clear favorite season. After the cold and “dead” of winter, life seems to just materialize from nothing and green again becomes the color of the valley. (Come out and see for yourself - just fantastic.) BTW, this spring has been very unusual and nerve-wracking for us. March was unseasonably warm, and the vines began growing. Crazy weather. The problem we’re worried about is that we might get a mid to late spring frost which could kill the new growth. Getting freezing weather during the growing season doesn’t hurt the vine itself, but kills all the new growth that contains the tiny fruit clusters. Vines have 3 buds, so they’ll just send out another shoot, but it won’t carry much fruit, if at all (Norton’s secondary buds are barren of fruit.) So, cross your fingers, as we’re not out of the woods yet and I’ll feel a whole lot better come mid-May when the threat of frost has past.

On the dairy cow front, we’re now closing in on 90 milk cows (boys included, though) and getting the new building built and ready for cheese making is a high priority for me and Perry Griffin, my partner in the Locksley Estate Farmstead Cheese Co. (Perry is also the Locksley Estate manager, overseeing all the maintenance and care of the farm infrastructure.) We’ve just received our “grading permit” from Loudoun County, so construction activities are about to start. From now on I’ll be keeping you abreast of our progress, and hopefully have some ongoing and hopefully exciting photos to share.

Take care, and hope to see you soon.

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