In case you’ve missed it, the latest “buzz” in wine is crossing the continent as we speak!
11 years ago, our family had decided to move to a beautiful, relatively small town in Virginia with world-wide recognition! Historians will insist that Charlottesville is most notable because of the influence of one man, Thomas Jefferson. However, talk to anyone under a certain age (ahem!) and they’ll have you know it is more well-known as the residence (albeit, part-time) of Dave Matthews and the DMB! Two decades ago at the Earth Day Festival in the City of Charlottesville, the Dave Matthews Band was publicly launched. in 2001 I had no idea who the heck DMB was, but friends of ours in Dallas were envious that we could move to the “birthplace of The Dave Matthews Band“! How exciting! A couple of years after we moved, a family member (name to be withheld) was eating a slice of pizza with us at Christian’s Pizza on the Downtown Mall and literally bit through her plastic fork when she realized Dave Matthews was sitting behind us. We kept the fork for quite some time as a memento and at that point I realized how exciting (wink) it was to live in Charlottesville! Unbeknownst to us, in 2000, Dave Matthews had established Blenheim Vineyards, a family operated winery a scenic 20 minute drive southeast of Charlottesville. 
Now in 2011, Dave is launching another collaboration in wine making with Steve Reeder of California called The Dreaming Tree Wines, named after the song.
Creative Factor– Dave: “A mutual respect that doesn’t rely on his (Steve’s) knowledge of music or my knowledge of wine” and Steve: “I make wines for people to drink, I don’t make wines for people to put in their cellar”.
Steve Reeder graduated from University of California, Davis and according to Steve, was inspired to make wine at the 1st Middleburg Virginia Festival in the 1970’s! As a youngster, he worked for a while on his uncle’s farm in Indiana pitching in with beer making in the barn. Later he lived in Germany and was introduced to exceptional lager beers and his parents wine cellar 🙂 His resume includes Kendall-Jackson, Fosters Wine Estates and most recently, Simi Winery.
Check out their website, super cool and follow the path on the map! Does this mean the path ends in Virginia with Blenheim Winery making wine for The Dreaming Tree label as well? Could we cross the Great Divide between California wines and Virginia wines? And by the way, I love the Cork! We’ll soon know, perhaps someone can shed more light on this? All I know is that it sounds great, looks like fun and takes the pretentiousness out of wine drinking!
Charlottesville UnCorked 