NOVEMBER NEWSLETTER 2023
IN THIS NEWSLETTER...
VIP Wines of the Month
Report from the Tasting Room
Report from the Cellar
Report from the Vineyard
Report from the Locksley Farmstead Cheese
Note from Jenni
The busy holiday season is quickly creeping up on us and there's no better time of year to share Chrysalis Vineyards' wines with friends and family. Perfect at a holiday meal or as a gift, we have wines for every pairing and palate! Ask our tasting room staff for their suggestions - they love to share their knowledge and help you select the perfect wine for any occasion!
Watch for our holiday wine and cheese boxes coming to the tasting room!
NOTE TO OUR VIP CLUB MEMBERS
Our VIP pickup event this month will be held on Friday, November 10th from 5:00pm until 8:00pm at the Ag District Center. This month we'll talk about how to choose wines for all those upcoming holiday meals and parties! Members must RSVP no later than October 6th by emailing TR-Manager@ChrysalisWine.com. Please include your name, number attending (up to 2 per membership), and preferred time (5:00, 5:45, 6:15, or 7:00). When planning your visit please remember that we close at 8:00 pm.
If you're not a member of our Chrysalis Vineyards VIP Club, remember to ask one of our associates how to join. Our members enjoy complimentary wine flights and tastings, discounts on wine and food, exclusive access to VIP events and more!
The white wine selection for our VIP Club members this month is Chrysalis Vineyards 2020 Petit Manseng. This delicious dessert wine is filled with inviting honey and refined citrus notes with a floral undertone hinting at orange blossoms. It weighs the palate down with rich honey and reinforces the aromatics with dried stone fruit. A subtle gala apple finish lingers on the tongue begging for another sip. Enjoy this wine young or in 10+ years. For a real treat pair it with some of Locksley Farmstead Cheese's King Richard Blue!
Our red wine selection for November is Chrysalis Vineyards 2020 Locksley Reserve Norton. Our flagship red best showcases what Norton can do when crafted with careful intention and attention. Elegant aromatics provide herbal notes of sage, with pronounced tobacco and dark red fruit. This wine presents a firm structure and leaves a long finish of black pepper, spices, and black currant. Best enjoyed when aged in good cellar conditions for 5+ years. Buy a case and enjoy over the years!
As a reminder to our members, all VIP wine is available for pickup at the Ag District Center tasting room anytime during regular business hours. If you can’t make it out to pick up your wines on a monthly basis, we will hold them for you. Due to storage limitations, however, we do ask that you pick them up once you accumulate a case (6 months). We can also arrange for wine to be shipped to most locations, at your request.
NOTE: Please do not reply to this emailed Newsletter. Your email will not be handled in a timely manner or may even be lost.
REPORT FROM THE TASTING ROOM
The fall colors really faded with the recent cold temperatures and frost, but we've still got some nice weather ahead of us to enjoy the crisp fall air before winter settles in. If the sunshine isn't keeping you warm enough, then a glass of wine and some hot soup should do the trick! Chef Erik and his staff use their creative culinary skills to offer delicious specials each week. Stop by when you need a few minutes to relax, get some fresh air, and enjoy some fine wine and food!
Don't forget that The Ag District is a great place to do your holiday shopping, too! Need a last minute hostess gift? A bottle of Locksley Reserve Norton is sure to impress! Can't find a Christmas present to please Aunt Karen? How about some delicious Locksley Farmstead Cheese! We have something for everyone and there's nothing better than shopping while sipping wine!
I hope to see you soon!
Holly Morgan, Tasting Room Manager
REPORT FROM THE VINEYARD
The crew should be finished picking Norton the first week of November. By the this time they are usually tired, sticky, and looking for a heat source to warm themselves up! This year, they are proudly standing next to the bins of fruit admiring all of their hard work.
It’s been an interesting year to say the least, everything from cool weather in the beginning, to dry spells, and a week’s worth of rain, has left a few vineyards on their toes. Freddy and Filiberto though, have managed our 70 acres with ease and it really shows. We’ve had no rot, no disease, and no desiccation (raisining) of fruit. All the fruit chemistry has been more than ideal and the physiological ripeness has been not just “textbook” but something out of a fairytale.
At this point, we are starting to collect data from the vineyard experiments we’ve conducted and it looks like the idea of carrying for the vines' biome through fertilization has produced not just positive results but will most likely impact the way we work in the vineyard going forward. Yields are up 20% and the fruit weights are almost double from what they’ve been in previous vintages.
Many growers in Virginia are chalking up this increased yield and quality to the 2023 growing season, but we all know the truth, we just have the best vineyard crew in Virginia. We really appreciate all the hard work, care, and love Freddy, Filiberto, and the rest of the crew have poured into the vineyard. Every glass is made possible by their good work and I speak for all of us when I say thank you!
Jake Blodinger, Winemaker
REPORT FROM THE CELLAR
We are wrapping up harvest here in the cellar and we are excited about the 2023 vintage, it has really been an outstanding vintage! Last month during the Halloween pick up party, many of our members got a cluster of Norton grapes to taste and examine. There were lots of great questions and commentary on the flavors of the fruits. Many of you were surprised by how small the clusters were and how many seeds were in each berry.
The comment that sticks out in my mind the most is when one of our members asked if Norton was a “teinturier” grape. This term refers to grapes that have red skins and red pulps. Most grape’s color pigments, called “anthocyanin”, are found only within a thin layer of skin. I’m here to confirm this for you right now, Norton is NOT a teinturier grape. All of that wonderful purple and red color is found in its thick skin.
In fact, it’s believed that Norton has almost ten times more anthocyanins than any other grape. Even more so the anthocyanins found within Norton are actually “halochromic” meaning color will change when the pH changes. This is why Norton can be bright red all the way to intense purple. When there’s a tiny dribble of Norton left in the glass, it can actually appear blue.
Norton is an interesting grape that truly shows its versatility in the cellar. I encourage you to come into the tasting room and try a flight of Norton wines and look at the color differences. You will find that from Sarah’s Patio Red to Locksley Reserve there’s so much variation, it’s pretty neat!
Jake Blodinger, Winemaker
REPORT FROM LOCKSLEY FARMSTEAD CHEESE
It's starting to get chilly out there in those pastures! As winter approaches the lush green grass in our pastures starts to fade and the recent frost really hastened that process. Fortunately, Steven has spent alot of his time since the spring taking great care of our pastures and baling up some high quality hay to feed to our dairy herd over the late fall and winter months. He produces both dry hay, which you are probably most familiar with, and fermented hay. The fermented baleage is hay that is baled with a higher moisture content and wrapped in plastic for storage. It's a bit different from the fermentation that Jake does in the winery! We're not gearing our girls up for a dairy party... this method of storing the grasses from our pastures maintains a higher level of nutrients and keeps them happy and healthy until the spring grass returns!
An interesting effect of changing from a diet of pasture grasses to baled and wrapped hay is the change in the color of their milk and subsequently the color of the cheeses that we produce. Milk and cheese produced when they are munching on fresh, green spring grasses tends to have richer yellow colors. Milk and cheese produced while they are eating their winter hay tends to be much lighter in color - almost white. While the change in feed can create subtle seasonal changes in the flavor it's all delicous!
Hello there to all of our wonderful, loyal Chrysalis Vineyards friends. This month finds me travelling to Charlottesville, Va. for the annual Virginia Wineries Assocation Annual Meeting and Conference, so I only have a minute for a quick message! Part of the agenda for this year's meeting includes two talks by Dr. Federico Casassa, Professor of Enology & Sensory Analysis, California Polytechnic State University. He will be speaking about the components of red wine that create mouthfeel and winemaking techniques that influence red wine phenolics. I'll be hosting Dr. Casassa here on the farm after the meeting, so I hope to introduce him to our wines and get some valuable feedback.
I'll catch up with you next month!
Take Care,
Jennifer McCloud
Chrysalis Vineyards at The Ag District
39025 John Mosby Highway (Tasting Room/Creamery/Kitchen)
23876 Champe Ford Road (Winery/Milking Center/Offices)
Middleburg, VA 20117
McCloud@ChrysalisWine.com
Office: 540-687-8222
www.ChrysalisWine.com
Facebook.com/ChrysalisVineyards