By Matthew Fitzsimmons

 2024 was a rough year in the international wine industry. For the past several years, changing consumer preferences and shrinking discretionary spending has resulted in wine sales steadily plummeting.

Virginia wine’s focus on tasting room sales to agro-tourists somewhat insulates it from these larger industry trends, but challenges remain. Foot traffic is down, and vineyards face a serious threat from the invasive spotted lanternfly.

That said, 2024 has produced a number of good-news stories. The local wine industry still managed to grow to a record-high 327 tasting rooms. Moreover, high-profile media recognition, greater industry inclusion, and the availability of unique winemaker-driven projects provide ground for optimism in 2025.

Here are a few of the most important stories and notable bright spots that shaped the Virginia wine industry in 2024:

1. The 2024 Vintage

In the words of one winemaker, “The 2024 vintage was…weird”.

It started off strong. Spring lacked major frost risks, and the summer was especially hot and dry. These conditions allow vineyards to produce fruit with high-intensity berries, suitable for making powerful wine.

Alas, the drought was so harsh that winemakers actually wished for a few inches of rain. Yet when it finally came, it came in torrents. What could have been an awesome 2023-like vintage was knocked down a peg or two in many places.

Late-ripening reds such as cabernet sauvignon and petit verdot most likely suffered the most as they either had a hard time drying out or growers were forced to pick them prematurely. Fortunately, many vineyards brought in excellent merlot and cabernet franc earlier in the season, and their white wine grapes came in well before the rain.

Of course, this is a generalization. There are wineries that were extremely happy with their fruit and others that were less so. While uneven phenolic ripening in the berries may be a challenge, most winemakers seem satisfied with the quality (but not the quantity) of the 2024 vintage.

2. A Good Year For Diversity and Inclusion

2024 was a triple win for diversity and inclusion, with well-deserved callouts to Pride in the Vines, Virginia Women in Wine (VWIW), and The Oenoverse.

Loudoun County’s ‘Pride in the Vines’ hosted its second wine trail this past June for Pride Month. Not part of the trail but thematically connected was Culpepper Pride, hosted by Mountain Run Winery. Pride flags are flying in towns that didn’t welcome them even a decade ago.

Next up is Nancy Bauer’s VWIW, which launched its inaugural event in August. The necessity of this organization is driven by how two-thirds of the local wine industry workforce are female, yet women are severely underrepresented in industry leadership positions. The VWIW’s mission is to close this gender gap, offering opportunities for networking, leadership development, and highlighting the industry’s female trailblazers.

Blenheim Vineyards’ Oenoverse (Ee-Nuh-Verse) isn’t new, but this wine club/wine community/access & opportunity program has been ‘in the news’ in 2024 as co-founder Reggie Leonard received national recognition for his outreach to historically underrepresented communities.

Oenoverse-related events in 2024 included the Two Up Wine Down wine festival, which highlighted a number of BIPOC winemakers/owners. It also partnered with The Veraison Project, which hosted an immersion program aimed at members of historically underrepresented consumers & industry professionals.

3. Banner Year For Media Recognition

In 2023, Wine Enthusiast selected Monticello as their “Wine Region of the Year”. Since then, there has been a notable uptick in national recognition of the Virginia wine industry.

Major outlets which showered praise on Virginia wine include The Wall Street Journal, Decanter, Vogue, Southern Living, Travel & Leisure, and Men’s Journal (to name just a few). While Virginia wine has been recognized in the press before, it’s fair to say Wine Enthusiast supercharged the press circuit.

Hopefully, this will normalize Virginia as an ‘established’ region known for its quality wine, rather than constantly be identified as an ‘up & coming’ area to watch out for.

4. Small Batch Wine and the “Incubators” that foster them

The number of small-batch wine labels has grown significantly over the past decade, with six micro-brands opening in 2024 alone. This has given rise to ‘wine incubators’, which provide a space for these tiny enterprises to grow.

While such spaces aren’t new, Eastwood Farm’s “Virginia Wine Collective” may be the most innovative.

Eastwood plans on renovating the current Michael Shaps Wineworks Extended tasting room in Charlottesville, creating individual spaces that can be licensed separately. This allows the winemakers operating in these incubation spaces start-to-finish control over their wine. This also sets Eastwood apart from other “incubators,” which can’t allow their entrepreneurs to operate heavy equipment because of insurance liability.

Owner Athena Eastwood explained the goal is to create a joint tasting room for Eastwood’s participating “Wine Collective” members, which include local wine luminaries such as Jake Busching, Joy Ting, and Matthieu Finot. She also hopes it will encourage fresh talent to enter the industry by lowering the startup costs encountered by new winemakers.

5. RdV Vineyards purchased byChâteau Montros

This June, RdV announced it was purchased by Château Montrose, a “Second Growth” winery in Bordeaux. This is the first time a high-powered French château has established itself in the eastern United States.

This acquisition is a huge vote of confidence in not just RdV’s wine, but the quality Virginia wine can aspire to. Founder Rutger De Vink has already moved to Oregon, passing the reins to the Bouygues family. RdV will now be led by Charlotte Bouygues, who plans to split her time between NYC, Paris, and Virginia.

Charlotte explained Montrose’s decision to purchase RdV was driven by a desire to find a location abroad that stylistically fits with their existing Bordeaux wines. Locating a business where the existing team was willing to stay on, especially Winemaker Joshua Grainer, also encouraged them to make this move.

At some point in the near-future the winery will be renamed Lost Mountain, after RdV’s flagship wine and hilly location.

About the Author: Matthew Fitzsimmons is a blogger who has visited nearly every winery in Virginia – most of them twice. Track his progress at https://winetrailsandwanderlust.com/