Seeking Mountfair Vineyard on the Appellation Trail

Published on by Tricia TraugottLeave a comment
           On one of my recent outings with a good friend, open to spur of the moment adventures and travelling down bumpy back roads, we headed out to Mountfair  via “the shortcut”! 
We had just stopped in to revisit Glass House Vineyards, another excellent boutique winery on The Appellation Trail,  and decided to take the  shortcut over to Fox Mountain Road.  Delightful and scenic, with the surprise of a covered bridge (didn’t get a picture, Drat!) and mountain views I had never seen!  From Free Union Road and Glass House, turn right on 668 Chapel Spring Road which becomes Fox Mountain Road. This is approximately 7 miles, but an enjoyable detour.
I had been to Mountfair in the Fall,  the tasting room had recently been completed and I was curious to see the progress made by this sweet little winery on the eastern side of the Blue Ridge Mountains.  It is a little further out than some of the other wineries, but I recommend putting it on your list!  Look for events by following them on Facebook!  I was at City Market (the farmers market in Charlottesville ) and heard a rumour of a wine pairing event with L’Etoile!  Doesn’t that sound fabulous! L’Etoile is a mainstay in C-ville. Located near the bridge across from the Amtrak station, it has charm and character with delicious dishes and have a commitment to buying “fresh and local”! Check them out for lunch, dinner or samples (yum) at the market!  If that’s a perk of the wine club, it may be time to join!  We’ll keep you posted!
Kelly Meyers Rogan is the tasting room manager at Mountfair and  is as sweet as any Riesling.  Not only was she informative and gracious (stayed beyond closing time for us) but she is working on becoming a wine maker herself! She is presently apprenticed as a wine maker and taking the University of California at Davis wine making program!
 
 
 
 Kelly has a degree from The University of Virginia and is excited about her future in the Virginia wine industry!  When you stop in at Mountfair, be sure to say hello for me!  She is working on getting a refrigerator for snack items for visitors tempted towards a picnic on the terrace! Great idea!
 
 
 
 
 
 
 We tasted a couple of the wines and enjoyed them all, but liked the Indigenous, a blend of 50% Cabernet Franc and  50% Petit Verdot,  the best.  Don’t worry, there are more wines to come!  Being a small boutique winery and having sold out of several of their wines, more are being bottled!
  There is a very sentimental story behind the Wooloomoolooo wine, but for privacy reasons, let’s just say that it’s rather spiritual. When offered in the future, take advantage of savouring this wine!  Western Albemarle and Mountfair are rustic and  appealing, a great place for a weekend afternoon any season of the year!

Today At DuCard!! Artists, Music and Wine!

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Beleza Brasil under the Tropical Canopy of Glass House Winery

Published on by Tricia TraugottLeave a comment
Wine, Chocolate and Samba!

If you haven’t heard, which a few people haven’t, the new must-go-to winery is Glass House Winery in Free Union, Virginia. It is not hard to find, head out Garth Road towards the Blue Ridge Mountains turn right on Free Union and follow the curvy road past Buck Mountain Road. When you see Buck Mountain to your right, look left and there it is! Bring your wine tasting picnic fare with you and your camera, this is a real treat! I wrote about Glass House in the winter months, vowing to return when the weather warmed up. Glass House, along with Stinson Vineyards (Opening June 16th), White Hall and Mountfair comprise The Appellation Trail. In 2012, Moss will open and join the group. The trail was organized for ease of wine tasting afficionados to enjoy picturesque country roads and target a doable number of wineries on a weekend getaway. It is also a great marketing idea.This was going to be a “Glass House Revisited” post to see how things were growing in the wine business for the Sanders and how the plants were performing in the conservatory. Ominous clouds, a brief rain shower, some unexpected real estate business handled on the side of Free Union Road and suddenly the clouds magically disappeared. My friend and I thought it might be fun to sit inside Glass House Winery’s conservatory and watch the rain trickle down the glass panes and enjoy some of the newer wines offered at the winery. But no thunderstorms this Sunday afternoon!  Blue skies and perfectly comfortable temperatures allowed us the option of wine sipping inside  the conservatory or outside on the patio.

The first nice surprise for me was running into Paulette Musselman,  who was meeting, greeting and pouring at the tasting bar. She has a sparkling personality which fits in well at Glass House!  She started out as a repeat visitor and now works there for fun! We have been crossing paths for some time now on Facebook, and have similar interests (wine, photography and people) but had never met. What fun to finally meet face to face, it felt like meeting a friend from a former life! Everyone who works at Glass House is outgoing and seems to love being there and it the feeling is contagious. Definitely look for Paulette when you visit, you can’t miss her pretty smile!

Peeking around the door into the lush green house of the conservatory we found Madeline Holly Sales and Humberto Oliveira Sales, setting up the sound equipment to entertain the fortunate guests! This was my second surprise!

Beleza! Madeline Enjoys the Wine too!

He is originally from Brazil and plays Classic guitar and Flamenco. Madeline sings in Portuguese, English and Spanish! They perform as a duo and also as a group called Beleza Brasil. Beleza ( beautiful in Brazilian Portuguese) is the perfect word to describe this couple and the music they make together! Their music is a blend of North and South American styles and self-described as Funkalicious Samba Soul! By the way, they will be performing at Fridays After Five at the Ntelos Pavillion  on  June 10th!  I recorded a bit of the music for you to sample, sorry you can’t do the same with the wine!

We returned to the tasting bar where we ran into Jeff and Michelle Sanders, proud owners of Glass House. They were preparing to  enjoy the music and it was nice to hear that Michelle’s gourmet chocolates are a resounding success and she has all she can do to keep up with the demand. Dogbert their puppy is growing fast and I barely recognized her! She hangs out, staying cool laying on the floor and sniffing the air when visitors arrive. We settled in for a tasting  and tried all the wines available. Still on hold for the Barbera which will be available in the Fall.

We started with the Pinot Gris which was nice and light as it should be. My friend selected it to enjoy while listening to the sophisticated vocals drifting in to the tasting room. We moved on to the Viognier, the nose was incredible on this white, and if I recall correctly, I  picked up luscious banana and citrus on this one. That was my favorite! The third white that we tried was made from Traminette grapes and had 3% residual sugar. I decided this, in keeping with our tropical theme, would be ideal for a white Sangria. I recommend white peaches from Chiles Peach Orchard, some fresh rasperries and green grapes to make an eye appealing Sangria. Just buy a CD from Beleza Brasil and let the dancing begin!

We followed with the reds, a limited selection, starting with the C-villian, a blend of Chambourcin, Cabernet Franc and Merlot which had a wonderful nose as well. The Twenty First is a Meritage and was good but seemed like it needed to lay down more to develop more body, we thought it might get even better over time. We bought it the last time we were there and remembered it was quit good. The most unique wine was the dessert wine, Megglio del Sesso, and if you don’t like dessert wines you still must give it a try!  You can smell and taste the chocolate and when paired with  Michelle’s chocolate caramel and sea salt, you have a winning combination!   Yummy!!

Buck Mountain

Glass House has music on Friday evenings, bring your designated driver, the roads are dark and winding and you need to be sober to drive home. I hope you enjoy Glass House as much as we did!

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Overthrowing the Wine Establishment-Guest Post

Published on by Tricia Traugott1 Comment

Books: How Robert Parker Overthrew the Wine Establishment

Posted on April 30, 2011 by Bob

The Emperor of Wine: The Rise of Robert M. Parker, Jr., and the Reign of American Taste

It’s hard to overestimate Robert Parker’s influence on the wine we drink. Best known for developing the 100-point rating system, Parker’s Wine Advocate newsletter became so influential that winemakers consciously made wines to suit his taste for big, high-alcohol wines with power and intensity. Consultants that he was known to like were in high-demand by wineries, and wines that he praised in the Wine Advocate could sell out almost as soon as they arrived in stores.

There’s a lot to admire about Parker. He started his newsletter at a time when reliable information about wine was almost inaccessible to the average person, and reviewers were a bit too chummy with the vintners they wrote about. Parker never forgot what he learned from history professor Gordon Prange (the same Gordon Prange who wrote At Dawn We Slept) about writing simple declarative sentences that used everyday words. Thus, a wine he particularly disliked was described as “having the finesse of a horny hippopotamus,” while wines he loved might be referred to as having “oodles of fruit,” one of his signature phrases. He also refused the freebies that were common in the industry, maintaining instead the independence and objectivity that are the hallmarks of good journalism.

And yet, as Elin McCoy amply illustrates in The Emperor of Wine, Parker was controversial. He believed his palate was infallible and that he could taste a wine once and accurately determine its proper score (although he tasted each wine a second time before assigning the score). Given that he tasted hundreds of wines a week, that might have been a business necessity. But wineries who fell short on Parker’s ratings protested that no one could determine a wine’s true merit based on a single taste.

The problem goes deeper, however, involving the very idea of a 100-point system. Is it really possible to detect single-point differences in wines? Is any amount of tasting adequate to discern whether a wine is worth 93 points rather than 94? Is anyone’s palate that precise?

Certainly mine isn’t. If you’ve read the “about me” entry on this blog, you may recall my lament that I lack Parker’s nose and palate, as I suspect is true of most people. Even distinguishing between varietals can sometimes be difficult when tasting blind, but if a Master of Wine can discern hints of a dozen different flavors, from dark cherry to cassis, in a single wine, then I feel fortunate when I can find more than two. However, I still enjoy the ritual of tasting, of swirling, sniffing and sipping in the hopes of finding all of the subtle characteristics the wine possesses.

The final beef of Parker’s critics is that he remade the wine business to suit his own tastes, and there is some truth to that. A Parker score could make or break a winery, so few could afford to ignore his ratings. (Someone once said that a wine rated below 80 couldn’t be sold at any price and one rated over 90 would be too expensive for most of us to afford.) So winemakers who wanted the 90+-plus ratings studied Parker’s palate and tried to make the big, fruity high-alcohol wines that consistently won his highest ratings.

What I actually found more interesting was Parker’s admonition to some wineries to make wines suited to the terroir of their region. In a famous dispute with Tim Mondavi, who Parker believed was trying to emulate the subtlety and elegance of France instead of making true California wines with lots of fruit, he wrote that the Mondavis were “going against what Mother Nature his given California.”

For better or worse, and in my mind it was mostly for the better, Parker’s influence on the wine business was almost revolutionary. He deflated the industry’s big egos, upset the established order, and brought reliable information about wine to the masses. Whether you think the 100-point scale, which has since been emulated by the Wine Spectator and others, makes sense, it clearly makes it easier to decide whether a wine is worth what it costs and whether you’re likely to enjoy it. I personally find it easy to use and pay more attention to the five-point gradations, which tell me that a wine scored between 85-89 is “very good” while one rated between 90-94 is “outstanding.”

And my own bottom line is this: while I fell in love with wine long before Parker wrote his first newsletter, I never would have discovered so many good wines without him and the many wine critics who followed in his footsteps.

This was a guest post by a fellow PVCC Viticulture/Oenology classmate, Robert Garsson! A new blogger and one I look forward to following!

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Looking for Mother’s Day Ideas? Think Virginia Wineries!

Published on by Tricia Traugott1 Comment
 
Note from Keswick Vineyards: Thank you so much to everyone who voted for us in the Virginia Wine Lover Magazine’s “Best of” poll! We are so honored to have won Best Winery -Central, Most Romantic, Best Viognier Overall, Best Cabernet Franc Overall, and our talented Stephen Barnard won Best Winemaker Overall! They received over 7000 votes and the full results will be in their Summer 2011 issue!

Okay,  Dads!

I have talked to several Moms this week who had no idea what they were doing to celebrate Mother’s Day this weekend! What they all agreed on was their expectation that their husbands should a) plan something,  b) probably wouldn’t plan something and c) would wind up planning something themselves! This is a sad commentary on appreciating Moms! When I mentioned a trip to a winery, they loved the idea but thought it wouldn’t come together.

So, husbands, here are a couple of ideas that are close t0 Charlottesville and already planned for you. Buy a ticket, gas up the car and treat your lovely wife to something special. Maybe even line up a babysitter for a few hours if you have small children. There are several other wineries serving up wine and music as well. In addition to the ones listed below, check out Keswick Vineyards, Afton Mountain, Mountfair or Glass House Winery (decadent gourmet chocolates!).

Sugarleaf Vineyards                                                             

Mother’s Day Weekend Chocolate and Wine Pairing
Date: May 8, 2011
Time: 11:00AM – 6:00PM

Celebrate Mother’s Day with all the special women in your life at Sugarleaf Vineyards! Participate in a fun and informative wine and chocolate pairing. Sit outside, overlook the vineyard and enjoy the day with those you love while savoring hors d’oeuvres and wonderful Sugarleaf wines. $20 per person includes wine tasting, your personal box of wine infused chocolate truffles and hors d’oeuvres.

3613 Walnut Branch Lane
North Garden, Virginia 22959

Wine & Food Pairing
<!– Adv. Tickets Required
–>Cost: $20.00

Organizer: Sugarleaf Vineyards
Name: Lauren Bias
Phone: 434-984-4272
E-mail: info@SugarleafVineyards.com
Website: www.SugarleafVineyards.com

May07

Montpelier Wine Festival

 Address:
11393 Constution Highway
Montpelier Station, Virginia 22957
Date: May 7, 2011
Time: 11:00AM – 6:00PM

Montpelier Wine Festival
Date: May 8, 2011
Time: 11:00AM – 6:00PM

Description

The Montpelier Wine Festival is a two day event May 7 & 8 – showcasing the best of Virginia wines with music, wine cooking classes, upscale vendors and a kite extravaganza all on the beautiful grounds of James Madison’s Montpelier in rural Orange County. Enjoy a day in the country while sampling from 24 of our great wineries. Picnic on the grounds, take a carriage ride, fly a kite or sit back with your favorite vintage and listen to the music. Special tours of James & Dolley Madison’s home are just a short carriage ride away. This event is geared for the whole family to enjoy. Kids can make & fly their own kite, run on the grounds or make a balloon animal! Enjoy the whole festival with general admission or reserved your very own private table or tent to expand your experience!

Address

11393 Constution Highway
Montpelier Station, Virginia 22957

Private Parties: You can choose to have a private table for 8 which includes tickets, glasses, seating under a tent and a complimentary bottle of wine with your hospitality basket OR a private tent for parties of 12 and up which comes with all of the above, extra tables, chairs and hospitality baskets as well as VIP parking! Call 540-672-5216 to reserve yours now.
Bus/RV Parking: We welcome large groups. Parking is plentiful and we will greet your group at the bus. Call 540-672-5216 to arrange your special bus package.
Child Friendly: This is a day for the whole family. Wings Over Washington Kite Club hosts special classes to make your own kite. Then they help you fly it. They also have fun kite contests. The grounds of Montpelier are a special place to play and picnic for the whole family.
Specialty Foods: We look for the best of the best with our food vendors to compliment your favorite wines! Try butterfly shrimp or specialty crab cakes; wood fired pizza; honey baked ham treats; locally made cheeses with a great variety of breads; complete menu of vegetarian treats; baklava or chocolate covered strawberries – just to name a few tempting items.

Festival
<!– Adv. Tickets Required
–>Cost: $25 gate/$15 advance

May08

Roses and Rosé for Moms                     

DuCard Winery

Address:
40 Gibson Hollow Lane
Etlan (Madison County), Virginia 22719
Date: May 8, 2011
Time: 11:00AM – 6:00PM

Join us on Mother’s Day with a rose for all the Mom’s and discounts on our new Rosé wine. Mattie Fuller will be performing on the patio too. While supplies (of both!)last, as they say. No charge, but bring a brag picture of the little one(s), Mom.

Address

40 Gibson Hollow Lane
Etlan (Madison County), Virginia 22719

 

Roses for the Moms:

 <!– Adv. Tickets Required
–>Cost: a brag pic of the little one(s)

Organizer: DuCard Vineyards
Name:
Phone: 540.923.4206
E-mail: scott@ducardvineyards.com
Website: www.ducardvineyards.com

Kluge Wine, Going, Going….Get it Before It’s…Gone!

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Vacant Seats

Albemarle Simply…Gone? 

Most people in the Charlottesville area are fully aware that the remaining wine at Kluge has been rapidly flowing out the doors and into car trunks on a daily basis. The last time we  visited The Kluge Farm Shop,  1500 cases of the Albemarle Simply Red 2007 remained.  All of the white wine that was to be offered had been included in the recent auction of the property.  As of the moment, no one has purchased the magnificent manor on the hill, Albemarle House.  Who the new owner will be is anyone’s guess, but rumours abound with Donald Trump’s  name at the center.  According to some of the people who are now employed by “Grand Cru”,  there are under 1000 cases remaining and the last day for sales could be as early as May 6th, if not, May 9th.  Bottom line is that it won’t last forever!  At the all time low price of 2 cases for $90, you just can’t beat it!

Employed or Unemployed? 

After a few visits to Kluge, my husband and I were impressed by the staff at the Farm Shop and most specifically by Tammy Cavanaugh!  These employees are waiting to hear if they still have a job in the next couple of  weeks.  Hoisting heavy boxes of wine and laughing as if she knew what the future held  for her, she kept a light hearted, cheerful  attitude  amid a rather sad situation. We wanted to find out more about Tammy and what she had accomplished in her life outside of wine. After chatting with her, we found out that she has two autistic sons. She took the initiative to be  aggressive about their education and future. 

 Tammy started a non-profit organization, The  Charlottesville Youth Learning Academy, to help at-risk youths participate in project-based learning activities that  bolster their academic career and life skills.  YLA   has created programs focusing on the construction and motorsports industries to prepare their students for successful careers upon graduation.

Listen to Tammy on the video clip below:

They have received grants from The University of Virginia and have gotten involved with NASCAR with their Race 2 Sucess program. This is a dynamic lady who is a real asset to any organization and our suggestion to Mr. Trump would be, “You’re Hired!” 

Be sure to say hi to Tammy when you stop in at Kluge and hurry up because the wine,  like the property, will be Going, Going…Gone!

A Double Gold Afternoon at Jefferson Vineyards

Published on by Tricia Traugott2 Comments
 

Sunday Drive

Family outings with our son Brian and his  bride to be,  Carolina, are the best!  Always game for scoping out a new winery, we headed in the direction of Kluge Winery to pick up more of the 2007  Albemarle Simply Red.  The sun had  just peeked out after a rather gloomy Sunday morning and we were ripe to enjoy a little fresh April breeze and warm sunshine.  In a recent church sermon, ( it was Sunday after all!) we learned that direction not intention determines our destination!  Cruising down 53 past historic Monticello,  Jefferson Vineyards appeared ahead on our right and with that,  our destination  veered to the Jefferson Tasting Room!  Side note, we did make it to Kluge eventually and a quick stop at Blenheim as well.

We were quite familiar with  Jefferson wines but always held the notion that this particular winery was a bit  more of a tourist trap then a local attraction.  Nice to be  proven wrong,  it turned out to be a very pleasant experience and in retrospect are glad we hijacked ourselves off  our original route. If you’ve read any other posts you’ll notice I’m a bit spontaneous when it comes to winery visits.

To the right side of the parking area are old wine barrels  for sale to recycle rainwater, cool idea!  Add that want to Honey! I want a Vineyard!  Next to the rain barrels were even larger wine barrels.  Brian, anticipating his upcoming wedding festivities was attracted to the super sized wine barrels and attempted a pre-tasting!  Not really!  He hammed it up for the camera!

Jefferson Vineyards

A shaded deck is positioned just in front of the door to the tasting room. Lacks a little in curb appeal but  a  nice area to sit outside;  I think the best views are from the meadow facing the mountains and  that site could  be capitalized on  more.  They have placed a few Adirondack chairs with small tables to rest your wine bottle and glasses.  Nice touch!  I would recommend tightening the bolts a little or sturdier furniture, they’re  a bit light weight compared to other chairs of similar style.  All it takes is a bigger budget! or maybe a smaller…!  A lovely flagstone patio would be nice and visible from the scenic highway, beckoning to the multitude of tourists who visit Monticello and Ashlawn daily.

Invited inside by a couple of engaging  tasting hosts, forgive me I can’t recall the gentemen’s names, we embarked on tasting award-winning wines envisioned long ago by Thomas Jefferson.  Several visitors passed through during our tasting.  They were given directions, information and local trivia by the hosts.  We enjoyed their personal stories about  the wines and their favorite food  pairings. Such hospitality,  Another nice touch!

The Tasting

Tastings are $10,  slightly higher than most of the local wineries but includes a Riedel wine glass. Nicest touch of all!!  I’ve been in wineries in the Willamette Valley that offer the same style of Riedel glassware, each engraved with their logo.  A classic idea which enhances  the overall experience of the quality, color and especially the bouquet of the vintage.   Coincidentally, we were consulted about offering engraved glasses at Jefferson.  Of course, we thought it an excellent idea as a keepsake.  I use my souvenir glasses for sipping by the firepit, no tears if the glass doesn’t return to the cabinet!  In this case, the glass stays indoors.   We first tasted the whites, then reds and finished with the semi dry whites,  the Vin Blanc was Carolina’s favorite ( as marked on the tasting notes)!  Carolina draws hearts and stars (which fit her personality) on her tasting notes and Brian draws emotional  faces and caricatures on his (fitting his personality!) .

     Carolina Loved This-See the Heart!

Top of our list was the 2010 Pinot Gris crisp, bright and floral like the afternoon weather.  Our favorite reds were the Petit Verdot 2009 tasting of spice and tobacco and definitely, the Meritage 2008  Gold Medal Winner of the 2010 San Diego International Wine Competition.  The memorable and unique Malvaxian wine wasn’t available for tasting  (I love that bottle design) which is an excellent addition to any wine collection!   We selected the Pinot Gris, a Double Gold Medal winner,  to toast our side trip.  Taking our bottle to the meadow, we relaxed in the Adirondack chairs  savouring  excellent wine,  picture postcard views and sharing it with a lovely young couple very much in love.

 A Double Gold Day in The Monticello Trail Wine Country!                       

Cheers and a Clink to Carolina and Brian in 2011 and another Clink to Thomas Jefferson-Happy Belated Birthday!

Check out Greene!

Published on by Tricia TraugottLeave a comment

I’m on vacation but couldn’t let this slip by!
Check out the Greene County Food and Wine Festival April 16th and 17th. Complete Details.
Have fun! I’ll hear about it when I get back!

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Get an “Official” Taste of Spring on The Appellation Trail

Published on by Tricia Traugott5 Comments

 Albemarle County is catching on fast! I try to arrange self-guided wine tours for friends and clients with location and proximity in mind.  Now, the newly formed  Appellation Trail has done just that!   By organizing a mapped tour of four ( soon to be five wineries ) a logical sequence of wine tastings is simplified for tourists and locals.  Loudoun County has a similar set up for 27 wineries broken down into “clusters” for easy touring.  Wikipedia describes an appellation as a legally defined and protected geographic indication used to identify where grapes are grown.  It is also defined as a geographical name (as of a region, village, or vineyard) under which a winegrower is authorized to identify and market wine according to Merriam-Webster Dictionary.

Playing off of the name of the nearby Appalachian Trail,  the  “AT”  is a unique wine route that connects five artisanal wineries in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains:  White Hall Vineyards,  Mountfair Vineyards,  Glass House Winery,  Stinson Vineyards & Moss Vineyards (opening 2012).

  This Saturday April 16th  is the celebration of the” official opening” of  The Appellation Trail!

Spring is the Time for Wine!

                                           Appellation Trail Grand Opening Winery Events on April 16th:

 White Hall Vineyards:

Vertical tasting of  2006, 2007, 2008 & 2009 Petit Verdot,  paired with cheese (12:00 to 3:00pm)

 Mountfair Vineyards:

Pre-Release Tasting of the 2009 Engagement Blend with live music!

 Be sure to stop by  &  join them on the patio for a delicious glass of wine while taking in the beautiful views & the sweet tunes of  THE LOST SOULS!

 

 

 Glass House Winery:

Tank tasting of 2010 Viognier with Live music — The Stoned Masons (3:15 to 5:45pm)

 Stinson Vineyards

 Winery Preview Opening featuring Gryffon’s Aerie meats & mini-burgers.  Preview four of their seven wines!  The 2010 Sugar Hollow White, Sauvignon Blanc, Rosé, and Sugar Hollow Red will all be available to taste and purchase.  Additionally, they will be featuring Gryffon’s Aerie meat and miniburgers – stock up on pasture-raised, heritage beef, pork, and sausage!

 

Trump Buys Kluge Estate and Winery

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Cville gets “Trumped”

For over 200 years,  Charlottesville, Virginia’s claim to fame has been the home of Thomas Jefferson,  3rd President of the United States and co-author of the Declaration of Independence. Henceforth, another high-profile name will be associated with Charlottesville. Today, Donald  “The Donald”  Trump  achieved quite a coup in purchasing over 647 acres in the piedmont wine country of Virginia for a mere 6.2 million dollars.

Valued at over 28 million dollars, the largest tract included 647+/- acre tract of  planted vines, event pavilion, large office barn, a carriage museum, and three cottages ideal for staff or guest accommodations. 60+/- acres of clear land that has ideal slope and elevation for future planting.  Tract 3,  a 131.7+/- acres tract contains the original vineyard as well as the winery production building, 2 2BD/1BA cottages, a barrel cave that can hold approximately 500 barrels, and a modular office. 

J.P. King Auction Company, Inc., the oldest real estate auction company in the United States conducted the auction. A video of the Kluge Estate and Winery

offers the public a glimpse of the exquisite property that fell under the same circumstances encountered by many during these tough economic times.  Donald Trump was poised and ready to capitalize on an incredible investment opportunity… and he succeeded.
During  a recent PVCC viticulture class, I had the chance to prune some vines under the tutelage of Chris Hill and Gabrielle Rausse. I wonder if Mr. Trump will ever invite me over?  That might have been my first and last tour of the Kluge vineyard.
Locals can only speculate what plans Trump has for Kluge. Will his name be the new label? Will it be Gold??   Highly likely considering past history.  One thing is certain, Virginia’s wine country and Charlottesville will gain more international attention with the Trump branding.

Church on Kluge Estate

 We are an understated area, elegant and quiet, will Charlottesville ever be the same?