I apologize for not taking pictures, but I didn't think to bring my camera, and really, I didn't have clean hands long enough to take a picture!!
Once again, a big giant "THANKS" to Kris, for pimping me out, I owe you a big, fat, wet kiss when I see you! Unless I'm sick, then I'll hug you. Maybe I should just pretend to be sick and hug you instead... whatever..
Anyway, so today was just bursting with awesome!! I get to Fabbioli (my first time driving on gravel, it's weird, but the crunchy sound is cool!) and meet Birgit (sounds like beer get) who is totally the coolest tasting room associate/landscape architect ever! She set me up with some clippers and a crate (called a lug) and we got to work picking Merlot!
I cannot even BEGIN to tell you how beautiful those grapes were! (but obviously I'm going to try) The clusters were so perfect, they looked fake! Big, beautiful berries, covered in a perfect bloom (that's the powdery- white looking stuff on grapes), ripe and plump, and with surprisingly very little rot. It's Virginia, I was expecting more rot. Yeah, I ate a few.. Out in the vineyard, with the bees humming, the sun shining, and the cool breezes blowing, it was so peaceful, it was like therapy. Seriously, you feel this one-ness with everything(and then you learn to avoid the bees). It's tiring, sticky, messy work, your hands will look disgusting, but so rewarding! These were some of the best-maintained vineyards I have ever seen!
After a break for lunch and a tour of the winery and a super fun ride on a golf cart (I want one), my fellow grape slaves and I went back to fields and picked some more Merlot grapes! And then we got an impromptu Spanish and German lesson. I can now ask the time in Spanish and tell you what farfegnugen means. From ten in the morning till around 4, we were picking nothing but Merlot. I think we picked something like a ton. Carrie meet sunburn. Sunburn meet Carrie's face.
Next came the sorting table, where the grapes go into the crusher/destemmer, and get dumped out onto a table (unless your name is Doug Fabbioli, and then you use a kid's slide, the man's a genius) where you're elbow deep in crushed grapes and juice, and the goal is to get as much of the stems and detritus (like leaves and such) out of the must ( pressed grape juice is called must). If you have OCD, this is a job for you. Seriously, it feeds compulsive sides of yourself you didn't know you had! You also avoid the bees. I think Doug said it best when he was explaining to me, that basically, this is the most tedious but important step in quality control, because once you start fermenting, there is no way to get that stuff out. The stems have lots of tannins, and can give the wine an unpleasant green vegetal characteristic. However, they are good ammunition for throwing at your co-grape slaves.
Then the totally cool part began. Sit down, the awesomeness cometh!!
Doug took me inside and showed me some of the tests you do on wine. He used a refractometer to check the sugar level or "Brix" in the wine. Those things are totally cool, you basically drop the juice onto this little slide, and hold this thing up to your eye, you can see (especially if you hold it up to the light) a scale, and where the black line starts is your Brix level. I had read about them, but finally got the chance to use one, another theme of the day! Then we checked the acidity of the wine, which everyone should remember from high school chemistry, but not on the litmus paper, so I couldn't make jokes about congratulations you're pregnant. You get to make BRIGHT pink water!!! It's awesome!!! And the whole time Doug is explaining all these things to me, and why they do them, and it was just so cool! He is such a great teacher!
What I think I enjoyed the most is really getting to know Doug, his wines, and his approach to winemaking. Doug kind of looks like a mad professor, he's got glasses, a big smile and wild hair, and he's always going! The man doesn't seem to stand still, but he's always quick with a joke, and can take it as much as he can dish it! He takes his wine seriously, and will be the first to tell you, he's not a lab technician, he's a winemaker, which really sums up his whole approach to wine. The grapes are the most important part of his wine. Not the must adjustments, barrels, not some fancy new clone or designer yeast, the grapes. Doug prefers to pick based on acidity rather than a lot of other Virginia winemakers, and it shows, because his wine is actually good, even his *gasp* Cabernet Franc. That's right, I said it, Doug makes a good Cab Franc. It's missing that green "Virginia Tang" (his words) and instead has pretty bright primary red fruits, a hint of some baking spices, and perfectly balanced. There, my secret is out. I found a Cab Franc I could enjoy. Doug grew up literally with the vineyard under his nails, in his blood. All throughout high school and college, Doug's been working at a vineyard. His passion for and dedication to wine is obvious, his house is his winery, his tasting room part of his house! Inside the tasting room, you can see all the (many) awards his wines have won, these beautiful photographs of grapes taken by family members, and even a few pictures of the winemaker in his native habitat, looking even more so like the mad professor! Walking around the property, you start to notice these little details that really show this man cares, like his storage area made out of shipping containers, dug into a hillside to keep a steady cool temperature, and the compost pile, which gives you a hint of his sustainable minded methods!
My favorite of Doug's wines is his Tannat. When Doug mentioned he had a Tannat, I almost peed my pants! Tannat!! In Virginia!!! Apparently, Tannat grows pretty well in Virginia, and it doesn't have that harsh tannin that Tannat is usually known for. Doug, sensing my joy, was awesome enough to open a barrel (!!!) and give me a sample!! It's to die for, even though it was a bit young and in it's awkward oenological teen years, there's yummy red fruits, baking spice, sweet clove, and coat-your-teeth raspberry! Full of intensity and structure, Doug hit all the right notes on that one! And it goes without saying his Raspberry Merlot is just off the charts....
All in all, I had an amazing day. I learned so much, and got to meet so many great people, I can't wait to go back and (hopefully)
I definitely recommend you go visit!!
I'm going to stop typing so you can stop reading and go back to your regularly scheduled lives. And I'm gonna go slather my face in aloe.
1 comment:
Love it! Now that you have your feet wet, as it were, maybe you can do another winery, too. Next time, sunblock. Kris is a pretty cool chic!
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