IN THIS NEWSLETTER...
VIP Pickup Party... at the ADC
Creative Mankind Painting and Wine
Yin in the Vin
Report from the Tasting Room
Report from the Vineyard
Report from the Cellar
Report from the Farm
Note from Jenni
VIP PICKUP PARTY…
at the AG DISTRICT CENTER
Saturday, July 14th
7:00 pm – 9:00 pm
at The Ag District
(RSVP REQUIRED)
After what seemed like a month of endless rain, July looks like it's set to start out with a spell of sunny, hot weather.... just in time for all those 4th of July picnics celebrating this great nation that we call home. Be sure to make your celebration complete by including some all-American wine! There's nothing more genuinely American than a Chrysalis Vineyards 100% Norton wine. For something cold and refreshing try our Sarah's Patio Red. If you want a nice red to go with that steak on the grill try our Norton Schitz & Giggels or Norton Barrel Select. To top off the night while watching the fireworks try our own sparkler, Chrysalis Vineyards Buttorfleoge! All of them are delicious wines made from our native American wine grape, Norton, grown and produced locally by farmers.... those hardworking people that made our great country possible.
Don't forget.... we have live music at the Ag District Center every Saturday from 2:00-5:00 pm (July 7th, 14th, 21st, and 28th). Chrysalis Vineyards wine and live music... no better way to spend a summer day!
Remember to check out our website at ChrysalisWine.com. It's full of great information about Chrysalis Vineyards and the Ag District Center and for those of you who don't have time to get out for a visit, now you can purchase your favorite Chrysalis Vineyards wines online!
Our VIP Pickup Party this month will be held on July 14th from 7:00 pm until 9:00 pm (Please note the time!). This event is FREE for our members (2 attendees per membership), but does REQUIRE advance RSVP no later than July 10th. To RSVP please send an email to VIP-Club@ChrysalisWine.com. Verbal RSVP’s and voice mail responses cannot be guaranteed confirmation.
Our spring and summer hours began on April 1st and we are open 10am - 6pm Monday through Thursday and 10am - 7pm Friday through Sunday. Please remember… as always, our last full tasting will start an hour before closing. Last call for purchases of open bottles or glasses will be 30 minutes before closing!
The red wine selection for our VIP Club members this month is Chrysalis Vineyards 2016 Norton Locksley Reserve. This is Chrysalis Vineyards’ flagship dry Norton--The Real American Grape!® For the 2016 vintage, we carefully chose the best lots of Norton wine and blended them with Tannat and small amounts of Petit Verdot and Nebbiolo to produce a complex and deeply-colored wine with a firm tannic structure and refined acidity. Elegant and balanced, our Locksley Reserve has an intense aroma of sweet vanilla, smoke and earth. It is fruit-forward with a wonderful palate of concentrated cherries and blackberries with flavors of spicy black currants and peppery-chocolate. This great wine tastes fantastic now, but time will transform this powerhouse into one of the “best wines of all nations.” For summer grilling try our Locksley Reserve with grilled flank steak and mushrooms in a red wine reduction.
Our white wine selection for July is Chrysalis Vineyards 2016 Albariño. Albariño is very rare in the United States, but has found a home at Chrysalis Vineyards, who produces one of the best made in America. Floral aromas of gardenias permeate the nose, reminiscent of cool summer afternoon breezes. Dry and crisp, this wine is filled with rich, bracing flavors of citrus, almonds, apricots and peaches, with an inherent tartness and clean freshness, which is a true varietal characteristic. This small and thick-skinned grape yields low amounts of high quality juice, producing a wine that is like a racy offspring of Riesling and Viognier. Pair our Albariño with a grilled shrimp and peach salad for a refreshing summer treat!
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.
Also, please remember that you can always find your paired recipes and detailed tasting notes at www.ChrysalisWine.com in the Private VIP Club Area. Pairings and tasting notes are available for wines dating all the way back to 2007 (especially useful for any of those with older, aged vintages). Also check in with us or follow us on Facebook for updates and announcements.
NOTE: Please do not reply to this emailed Newsletter. Your email will not be handled in a timely manner or may even be lost.
Creative Mankind Painting and Wine
Sunday, July 22nd
1 pm – 4 pm
at the
Ag District Center
39025 John Mosby Highway
Middleburg, VA 20117
Creative Mankind will be hosting a “paint and sip” event at Chrysalis Vineyards on Sunday, July 22nd. (From their website: Creative Mankind is an art company that offers art classes and hosts parties and events for all ages. Our motto is “Everyone is a Creative Genius!” It's just a matter of people reconnecting with their creative self. Our mission is to enrich our community with art education and culture in a fun and accessible way.)
So... beat the heat and spend a fun afternoon laughing, listening to music, creating your own masterpiece, and sipping your favorite Chrysalis Vineyards wine! This 3 hour event is just $40 and includes all art supplies, an awesome staff, and a lot of fun. No experience is necessary. For additional information please contact Creative Mankind at 571-403-1912 or go to their website listed below. [Editor's Note: cut and paste this long link if it doesn't activate by clicking on it. Thanks.].
https://sites.cimplebox.com/events/registration.aspx?s=5329&c=3146&eid=411066&r=0.5534507
Yin in the Vin
Friday, July 27th
6 pm – 8 pm
at the
Ag District Center
39025 John Mosby Highway
Middleburg, VA 20117
Chris Oemler, E-RYT 500 (an impressive certifiction that requires 500 hours of yoga instructor training and 2,000 of teaching) will be joining us at the Ag District Center on Friday, July 27th at 6pm for a FREE yoga practice - "Yin in the Vin". Chris will lead us in stretching and meditation practices that will be sure to sooth you soul and if that doesn't work you can always try the tried and true method - have a glass of wine! So come on out for some yoga and stay for the views as we unwind! The tasting room will stay open an extra hour (until 8pm) for those who would like to relax with a glass of your favorite Chrysalis Vineyards wine.
Bring your mat and experience this awesome practice stretching and relaxing in the beautiful countryside (no previous experience necessary). We will be holding this yoga event in August too!
REPORT FROM THE TASTING ROOM
Sangria is the unofficial drink of summer among the wine lovers at Chrysalis Vineyards. Why you ask? Because the bold beautiful flavors of our wines enhance any sangria recipe you can imagine. Since the time sangria was first introduced to us here in the United States by our Spanish friends at the 1964 World Fair in New York it has evolved from the traditional sangria to pretty much anything you can imagine sangria.
Traditional sangria is made with a fruity red wine, some fresh seasonal fruit, a little club soda and a splash of brandy. A perfect wine for this sangria is our Sarah’s Patio Red. The Norton grape and its big fruity flavor will create the best Sangria you have ever made! But, if traditional sangria is not what you are looking for, may we recommend a version made with our Sarah’s Patio White. Sarah’s Patio White will make a refreshing sangria with hints of apricots and peaches so we recommend adding some of those ripe fruits to your pitcher. Can you imagine anything more tempting on a hot summer’s day than a delicious pitcher of sangria? We can’t! So grab your favorite Chrysalis wine today to make the perfect summer sangria!
(A little tidbit for you history buffs, a Norton wine won “best red wine of all nations” at the Vienna World’s Fair in 1873.)
We look forward to seeing you all in the Tasting Room soon! Cheers!
Laurie Stevens, Tasting Room Manager
REPORT FROM THE VINEYARD
Okay, Dame Nature, Enough! We understand that after a relatively dry winter you felt some need to replenish the aquifers and give your plants a boost, but We’re Good! Come back again for a day or two in late July to help us out again, and then a couple of more times in August and we can bid adieu until after harvest. Well, the rains that I promised would end last month have not seemed to have done so. We have had a good dose of sun and heat which has allowed us to catch up from a later bud break, and the vines have all completely finished flowering and are now tiny green berries, beginning to grow up. The rain has favored the development of fast-growing canopies, which are proving difficult to manage right now, but the vineyard crew is managing to make some headway in our ‘jungle’. One of the main problems with an extra dense canopy, and a lot of rain and humidity, is that air-flow is restricted, thus favoring the development of various fungal diseases which are hard to reach because of the number of layers of leaves shading and blocking the fruit. Another issue is that many varieties, including Norton, really need almost full sun on the clusters in order to properly ripen and develop the phenols and flavors we want to find in our wines. We will persevere, but we can do without anymore deluges.
Mark Patterson, Winemaker
REPORT FROM THE CELLAR
All of the 2017 white wines are now in bottle and focus is on completing a few red blends for bottling in August and December. I’m especially excited about the aromatics that were coaxed out of the 2017 Albariño, and I can’t wait for you to sample the results. As July progresses I will begin focusing on preparations for the 2018 harvest. Soon, I will be firing up our presses and inspecting them closely, making sure that all components are in proper working order, lubed and cleaned. I will also be looking at all of the different size hoses we use and repairing or replacing the ones that need attention. During harvest it is very frustrating to go to use a hose that isn’t usually needed the rest of the year to find out it won’t work. It can slow things down on a busy day, or require you to change the way your day was planned out. The crusher-destemmer and the Kiesel pump used to move crushed grapes and must also need some attention prior to harvest. Of particular importance will be preventative maintenance on the glycol cooling system. All of our tanks have jackets around them which contain cooled propylene glycol that is used to maintain controlled temperatures in fermenting and finished wine. White wines, in particular, require precise temperature control to ensure the expression of all the floral and fruit notes we want in the finished wine are fully realized. I ferment the whites cool/cold (around 55˚F) in order to retain as many of the grape's natural aromatics and to ensure that the esters and alcohols created as a byproduct of fermentation are the ones I want. Too high a temperature and I risk ‘scrubbing’ out some character via carbon dioxide production and possibly produce some esters that I don’t want. Too low and I might cause the yeasts to ferment too slowly, not go to completion, and potentially start to throw off faulty aromas reminiscent of sulfury, rotten eggs as they struggle to perform. Not an ideal scenario and one that is easier to avoid, then it is to correct.
Mark Patterson, Winemaker
REPORT FROM THE FARM
Hello ! --
Eric is off the farm for a couple of days of well-deserved rest, so this month's report is brought to you by none other than.... the accounting department! Yes, that seems like a strange substitute for a report about the farm, but as a working farm we all have to wear a lot of hats and I frequently have the opportunity to get out and see what's going on around Locksley Estate. I'm always amazed at the variety of skills that Eric and his crew have to master in order to properly care for our land and animals. From fixing tractors to birthing calves (the picture shows the newest member of the herd who was born last week), these guys work from dawn until dusk to ensure that we raise happy healthy animals who produce the highest quality milk so that we can produce the highest quality cheese. All while also making sure that roads, fences, pastures, and buildings on the entire 400 acre estate are also maintained. I'm not quite sure how they manage to get everything done, but their tireless work sure is appreciated!
So, hats off to our farm crew and everything they do! They are a present day reminder of the hard work that built our country and the agricultural history of our local area!
Teri Scott, Accounting Manager for Eric Hilgartner, Estate Manager
A couple weeks ago a very sad event occurred, and I’d like to share my thoughts with you in this Note from Jenni in remembrance of Dennis Horton, of Horton Vineyards, who passed away in the early morning hours on June 19th.
Dennis was an explorer, a visionary and a leader… he ventured into the unknown with “those strange grape varieties”, thumbing his nose at the naysayers while enriching those of us who relish wine with new discoveries, new aromas, new flavors … and new opportunities. He opened our eyes and expanded the repertoire and possibilities of world-class wines from the mid-Atlantic.
It was Dennis who had the foresight to bring Norton back to Virginia, its native soil, after it died out here during Prohibition. Interestingly, Dennis grew up in Hermann, Missouri, the “center” of Norton in the Midwest, where the vine had been kept alive by Catholic priests throughout Prohibition.
It was Dennis who first planted and made Viognier in Virginia. Sound familiar… Norton and Viognier? It’s not a coincidence that Chrysalis Vineyards proudly offers these as our flagship red and white wines. I first tasted Dennis’ Viognier and Norton in Charlottesville in July, 1995 at the Eastern Section meeting of the American Society for Enology and Viticulture (ASEV). I fell in love with Norton right from the start, and made up my mind that day that I would help restore this great native gem to its rightful place of renown and prominence as America’s real contribution to the world’s fine wines.
Because Dennis was selfless in sharing his knowledge and in supporting those who followed in his footsteps, I was able to do just that. Dennis Horton was interested… not just interesting.
And Dennis Horton was my mentor, my inspiration, and my friend. I will miss him. I came to Virginia to grow grapes because of Dennis Horton. And his spirit lives on in every bottle of Viognier and every bottle of Norton, The Real American Grape!®
Jennifer McCloud
Chrysalis Vineyards at The Ag District
39025 John Mosby Highway (Tasting Room)
23876 Champe Ford Road (Winery/Offices)
Middleburg, VA 20117
McCloud@ChrysalisWine.com
Office: 540-687-8222
www.ChrysalisWine.com
Facebook.com/ChrysalisVineyards