Villa Appalaccia: Virginia Winery Visit

A taste of Tuscany in the Virginia Blue Ridge Mountains.

Location, location, location. Those are the three most important factors in real estate. When our daughter decided to purchase land and build a cabin in Meadows of Dan, Virginia, we learned the location was fortunate indeed.

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Just two and a half miles from the building site is Villa Appalaccia, a winery with its roots in Virginia, but its head in Italy, in fact, it calls its style a taste of Tuscany in the Blue Ridge Mountains (between mileposts 170 and 171 on the Blue Ridge Parkway and near Floyd). With the weather blustery and cool, we decided to suspend construction on the cabin and head to the winery.

Lofty Location

The winery was established in 1989, we learned, and the original owners had a scientific background. They determined that the elevations and soils were a good match for Italian grape varieties. Villa Appalaccia was purchased in 2018 by Tim and Julie Block.

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The location of Villa Appalaccia is ideal. The stone villa is on a sloping hill that features outdoor tables and seating and also a bocce court. It is at 3,400 feet elevation, while the vineyard is a couple miles away and 1,200 feet lower to lessen the dangers of frost and high winds. Heyward Smith, the son-in-law of Tim and Julie, and the winery manager explained the wines to our tasting group of family and friends as we sipped.

We opened up with the whites, the first a 2019 Pinot Grigio, a light smooth wine with crisp flavors of pear and citrus. The next two wines were both made from Vidal Blanc. We are familiar with Vidal mostly from our time in Ohio. It is a cold hearty grape and also a popular choice for making ice wine.

Italian Varieties And More

The 2019 Lirico (lyrical in Italian) is 100% Vidal and has delicious green apple and lime notes. It bright and flavorful. It goes for $18.95.

Allegra is also 100% Vidal but is produced in a frizzante style, the light fizz being reminiscent of dry Prosecco. This is an upbeat, fun wine that we could sip all day. There are notes of lemon-lime and honey. It’s one of the driest wines produced by Villa Appalaccia.  Both Lirico and Allegra are finished in stainless steel to keep the crisp, precise flavors.

The 2019 Rosa is a rosé made with Merlot and Semillon. This was the first time I’ve tasted a rosé that included Semillon, which is a white grape.

Villa Appalachia offers three very nice reds. Each is aged in neutral oak, so as to not overwhelm the delicate flavors. The first red was the 2019 Sangiovese, a grape we dearly love. Heyward calls this a perfect pizza wine. The notes are deep berries with a touch of spice on the finish.

Delicious Red Wines

The Corvina was an excellent surprise. Sangiovese isn’t super common, but you can find it. Corvina, on the other hand, is much more difficult to locate. According to Heyward, Corvina loves slate, which the Villa Appalaccia vineyard has in abundance. The notes are sour cherry mingled with strawberry and a bit of pepper on the end.

The flagship blend of Villa Appalaccia is Rustico, a balanced 50/50 blend of Montepulciano and Cabernet Franc. The wine is aged for 12 months in oak barrels. This is a fuller-bodied wine with plum and blackberry flavors. Due to the aging in neutral oak, it works well with a variety of lighter meat dishes as well as vegetarian cuisine and pasta.

In addition to great wine and friendly service, the winery is dog friendly (yay!) and has resumed its live music schedule. Due to the weather and our schedule, we didn’t get a chance to play bocce, but you can count on it during our next visit! The winery is open Wednesday through Sunday.

Rockway Glen Estate Winery Fergie Jenkins Hall of Fame Collection 2007 Vidal

Although originally developed by a Frenchman seeking vines for Cognac, Vidal Blanc has found a home in Canada and the northeastern part of the US. It’s winter-hardy and so grows quite well in Ohio and Michigan and wineries in our area produce some great versions. Quarry Hill in Ohio and Sandhill Crane Vineyards in Michigan are two Vidals worth checking out.
The thick skin of Vidal Blanc also makes it a popular grape for the production of icewine. The wine produced tends to be fruity with grapefruit or pineapple flavors. Most of the Vidals I’ve tried have had a touch of sweetness.

During our visit to Niagara Peninsula wineries, we sampled the Rockway Glen Estate Winery Fergie Jenkins Vidal Blanc and liked it enough to bring a bottle back across the border. We recently popped it open and found it to be a hit. To learn more about Rockway Glen, you should read our recent story. Fergie Jenkins was a Canadian and a Hall of Fame pitcher with the Chicago Cubs. He runs a charity golf tournament at the Rockway Glen golf course and so is also tied in with the winery.

This was a crisp, acidic wine and rather refreshing. It had the tropical fruit flavor notes, but what I found interesting was that it wasn’t as sweet as other Vidals I’ve sampled. The wine, like a lot of Vidal Blancs, wasn’t tremendously complex – but it certainly gets high grades for value and drinkability. With the baseball tie-in, the wine might be a good conversation starter.
The cost was just $10 at the winery with $1 going to charity. The flavor and price make a nice double-play that Fergie Jenkins would welcome!

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Ohio Winery Visit: Troutman Vineyards Celebrates Harvest

Green Dragon and I spent the weekend at Mohican State Park hiking and enjoying wonderful October weather. Before zipping back to the Toledo area, we thought we would check out Troutman Vineyards which had a Harvest Festival scheduled. Troutman Vineyards is set among the rolling hills of southwestern Wayne County in Ohio, about five miles south of Wooster and on the fringes of the Mohican region and the Amish community.

Andy and Deanna Troutman opened the winery in 2001 and the winery building is in a refurbished chicken coop that was originally built in 1935. A former owner of the winery land sold honey and flowers from a roadside stand. Andy lived not far from the site of the current winery and his interest in winemaking started at an early age. When he was in 4H he grew grapes. The vineyard was planted in 1998 with the first harvest in 2000. The vineyard focuses on grapes that Andy has determined thrive in Wayne County: Vidal Blanc, Lemberger, Traminette, and Cabernet Franc.

Things were really popping at the winery when we arrived. The tasting bar was jammed and there was a bluegrass band with a nice crowd in a picnic area in the back. There is a spacious tasting room that had hosted a Harvest Feast the night before we arrived and looks like it is great for special events. This is also a nice destination for kids, who are sure to enjoy the goats and donkey.

The wine samples are a ridiculously reasonable 25 cents. We started with the White Menagerie, a dry white made with Ohio-grown Seyval Blanc grapes. This snagged a gold medal at the Finger Lakes international competition and was a winner with us also. It had tropical fruit flavor notes and a good crispness. We purchased a bottle of this for $14.

The 2008 Pinot Gris is a dry white which is aged in French oak for six months. Although enjoyable, we prefer a bit more crispness.

We also tried the 2009 Cabernet Franc. We love Cab Franc and this is from estate-grown grapes and only 43 cases were made due to the small crop. This had a very pleasing taste, but we expect it will be even better after aging another year or two.

The most popular wine was Farmer’s Red. While we were at the counter at least two cases of Farmer’s Red were sold in addition to many bottles and glasses. This is a sweet red wine made with Concord grapes and we’re told it really goes well with peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

Andy gave me a tour of the production room and I was impressed with the array of tanks and equipment for such a small production winery. Andy’s winemaking experience has really benefitted the operation. He spent three years working at Wolf Creek Winery before opening his own. This gave him an insight of different equipment and connections that enabled him to find out about good deals on used equipment.

As we walked through the tank room Andy pulled out one of his few remaining bottles of sparkling white wine. This sparkler, made of Wayne County Vidal Blanc grapes, was dry and creamy. Thoroughly delicious.

I savored this and walked out to the bluegrass music where Green Dragon was enjoying a glass of White Menagerie. It was crowded with families who were enjoying picnic lunches, blue sky, and great music. Another feature of the Harvest Festival was grape stomping, something that Green Dragon always wanted to do.

This was a head-to-head competition. Two plastic tubs were filled with grapes in various stages of crushedness. There was a little hole at the bottom which trickled out to a cup. Green Dragon went head-to-head with a 6-year old boy who was apparently a professional grape stomper. Although she lost the race, she was pleased and purple.

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Atwater Vineyard Estate 2007 Vidal Blanc

We were looking for a crisp, refreshing white wine as we were unwinding on a summer's evening. We hit just the right note with a favorite from the Finger Lakes: Atwater Vineyard Estate 2007 Vidal Blanc. Atwater is on Seneca Lake and is one of the closest wineries to Seneca Springs, the bed and breakfast we've stayed at the last two years. Atwater has a sensational deck high above the lake with a gorgeous view. Of course, the wine is spectacular as well.

Vidal Blanc is a French-American hybrid grape that is popular in the Finger Lakes as well as Ohio. The grape is hearty and thrives in cool climates. It is a favorite for ice wines but also makes crisp and juicy wines with a touch of sweetness. It tastes like a cousin of Riesling but hasn't been given the appreciation of the more well-known white grape varieties.

We first tried a glass of red wine (to remain anonymous) that we had opened a couple nights before. After the first taste we knew that it had gone south. We need something with some zing to purge the tired red wine from our taste buds.

The Vidal delivered a mouthwatering taste of apples and pear. It is an interesting, full bodied wine that paired well with a selection of cheeses.

This wine is a great choice for "chill-laxing" on these hot summer nights.