By Matthew Fitzsimmons The $20-30 price range is often cited as the ‘sweet spot’ for wine lovers. These are bottles meant to be splurged on without guilt, rather than saved for a perceived ‘special occasion’. Naysayers may say the under $30 range puts more ‘serious’ Virginia wines out of reach. To an extent that may be true. You’re unlikely to find big bold reds (which require aging in expensive barrels) in this price range, or the flagship bottles from well-known wineries. But don’t let anyone tell you that you can’t find great local wine for under $30. Deals can be found if you know where to look. Here are 12 Virginia wines that strike the right balance between quality and affordability. White Wines Barboursville Vineyards 2024 Vermentino Reserve ($23): Barboursville’s Vermentino is so good, it’s been selected for the Virginia Governor’s Case (honoring the Top 12 wines in Virginia’s premiere wine event) 7 out the past 8 times its competed. Their 2024 Vermentino is the latest in this series of wins. Vermentino isn’t a variety that comes to mind when thinking of Virginia wine but is very much in keeping with Barboursville’s Italian heritage. This wine has aromas of pear and lemon, followed by a surprising amount of minerality and acidity on the palate. Chatham Vineyards 2024 Steel Chardonnay ($25): Located along Virginia’s Eastern Shore, Chatham produces some of the most terroir-driven wines in Virginia. I could easily list any of their wines here (their $28 Bordeaux-blend is also a steal), but my favorite is its steel-fermented chardonnay. Chatham’s secret weapon is its soil – a combination of sandy loam mixed with ancient shell deposits. This combination gives its chardonnays a unique minerality that makes them stand out. Make sure to pair this wine with local oysters. Fifty-Third Winery &…
By Matthew Fitzsimmons Winemakers are often the ‘face’ of the winery they work for. That said, they are backed by a team who help them craft the best wine possible. One of the most important members of this team is a position that usually gets limited fanfare – their Assistant Winemaker. Assistant winemakers typically run day-to-day operations in the cellar, focusing on tasks such as monitoring fermentation, conducting lab analyses, and ensuring the workspace is fully sanitized. These responsibilities are unglamorous but crucial to a winery’s success. While few of Virginia’s Assistant Winemakers have name recognition outside industry circles, this can quickly change as they move to new roles. Corry Craighill was in her first Head Winemaker position (at Sunset Hills Vineyard) for only a few years when she was recognized as Loudoun County’s Winemaker of the Year in 2019. This past March, she was awarded the top prize at the 2026 Virginia Governor’s Cup wine competition for her Valley Road Vineyards 2023 Cabernet Franc Reserve. Corry’s success underscores the importance of keeping tabs on the people filling Assistant Winemaker roles. These winemakers may be “Assistants” today, but they are also tomorrow’s leaders. Jordan Demain, Pollak Vineyards How did you get into winemaking? “It was my dad that planted the seed for my interest in winemaking. I just fell in love with wine, learning how it reflects a sense of place. I was born in Philly and grew up in southern New Jersey. For years I worked in the New Jersey wine industry, learning about wine and just finding my passion. In 2016, I applied for an internship at King Family Vineyards and got to work with their winemaker, Matthieu Finot. It wasn’t long before Matthieu recommended me for a position at Pollak. By the end of the year, I…
By Matthew Fitzsimmons When oenophiles think of events that changed the course of the American wine industry, they’ll likely mention the 1976 “Judgement of Paris.” During that event, a group of French wine judges blind tasted a lineup of American and French chardonnays and red blends, and ranked a pair of Napa wines as the best in both categories. While not as famous, the Virginia wine industry has made its own contributions to the modern wine industry. Here are a few pieces of Virginia wine trivia that everyone should know. The Carter Family – Colonial Virginia’s First Winemakers Thomas Jefferson is America’s most famous oenophile, yet he never made his own wine. While he believed America had great potential as a wine region and spent decades trying to grow European grapes, Jefferson’s experiments were constantly thwarted by pests and weather. Few realize that almost 20 years prior to his viticultural trials at Monticello, the Carter family succeeded where even Jefferson failed. The Carters were one of the “First Families of Virginia,” a group of early settlers who rose to social and political prominence. Looking to diversify their crops away from tobacco, Virginia farmers were encouraged to plant vines. In 1762, Charles Carter sent a dozen bottles of wine produced at his plantation of Cleve (located in today’s King George County) to London’s Royal Society of Arts. The exact grapes he used is unknown, although they likely came from a mix of domestic and European vines. Impressed with what they sampled, the Society awarded him a gold medal for his “spirited attempt towards the accomplishment of their views, respecting wine in America.” A year later, the Royal Governor of Virginia certified that the Carter family successfully grew European grapes. The Carter family’s vines were short-lived, likely the victim of the same…
By Matthew Fitzsimmons Have you ever looked for a bottle of Virginia wine but didn’t want to drive to a winery to find one? If so, then check out “The Stewards of Virginia Wine”. This initiative from the Virginia Wine Marketing Office recognizes restaurants, bars, and retailers who have championed the Virginia wine industry. These businesses were rated on criteria such as their partnership with local wineries, presence on shelf space or wine lists, and overall commitment to Virginia wine. A set of judges recognized 18 ‘Stewards’ in the inaugural list, released in October 2025. The Judges Award went to the top 5 scoring businesses, namely Charlottesville-based Ethos Wine & Tea, L’Auberge Provencale in the Shenandoah Valley, The Omni Homestead in Hot Springs, The Wine Guild of Charlottesville wine store, and Charlottesville’s The Workshop wine and coffee bar. These Stewards play an important marketing role for the Virginia wine industry. In 2019, an economic impact study found only 5.3% of wine sold in Virginia was locally produced. If Virginia is to increase this number, it will need retailers, restaurants, and bars such as these to increase the footprint of the local wine industry. Sales from these venues also offer a ‘prestige factor’ that is hard to replicate. Horton Vineyard’s 1993 Viognier was the first Virginia wine ever sold at The French Laundry, one of the most prestigious restaurants in the US. This was a marketing boon for the then-nascent Virginia wine industry. Why Virginia wine is hard to find outside the winery The lack of availability of Virginia wine is linked to two intertwined culprits: high bottle prices and low production. Most Virginia wineries make under 3,500 cases/year; only a handful produce more than 40,000 cases. The boutique nature of the business means wineries seldom achieve the economy of scale…
By Matthew Fitzsimmons “Virginia is for (wine) lovers” may not be the official motto for the Virginia wine industry, but it easily could be. The Commonwealth has consistently outshined more famous wine regions, despite making a fraction of the wine they do. Wine writer Mike Dunne, who judged at the 2025 San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition (SFCWC), said this of Virginia’s entries: “Each year, some wine region of North America seems to gain recognition for a disproportionate share of high awards… in 2025, it was Virginia.” One of the hallmarks of Virginia wine is its diversity of styles and grape varieties. Cabernet franc and chardonnay are the state’s most widely planted grapes, but Virginia offers everything from albariño to zweigelt. Two factors shape this diversity: the state’s varied terroir, and a willingness to experiment. Virginia grows wine everywhere from high-elevation sites in the Blue Ridge Mountains to sandy soils along the Eastern Shore. While the state is arguably a geographic and stylistic middle ground between California and France, winegrowers point out Virginia’s unique growing conditions makes copying either of these areas impractical. This has led the Virginia wine industry to combine tradition with experimentation. Many winemakers prefer more classic styles that emulate those of the “Old World,” such as Bordeaux or Chablis. Others endorse a more creative approach, sometimes blending grapes normally associated with very different regions of the world. My personal “Top 10” list reflect this veritable hodgepodge of styles. Several are classic expressions of their variety, while others are uniquely ‘Virginia’ in nature. I’m especially interested in wines with great backstories, or varieties not usually associated with Virginia. Ankida Ridge 2022 Pinot Noir ($65): Many vineyards have tried growing pinot noir in Virginia, but Ankida is the first to prove it can be done well. Key to Ankida’s success is its 1,800’ elevation site along the Blue Ridge Mountains, which guarantees moderate temperature swings and mitigates disease pressure. This wine had a floral nose, with notes of earth, specifically wet dirt. The wine itself had heft but was still well balanced, with just the right amount of oak, tannin, and structure. It also presented tart fruit notes on the palate. Cave Ridge Vineyard 2023 Pinot Noir ($45): Compared to the Ankida Ridge, this example of a Virginia pinot was somewhat softer…
By Matthew Fitzsimmons Few beverages are as closely associated with special occasions as sparkling wine. In fact, around 20% of sparkling sales occur in December, according to industry statistics. While New Year’s Eve bubbly sounds wonderful, there’s no reason to wait for a holiday to send corks flying. Sparkling a food-friendly, versatile beverage, suitable for any occasion. Sparkling’s acidity allows it to cut through fatty foods, while the wine’s lower tannin structure prevents it from overpowering a dish. This acidity also acts like a palate cleanser, making it especially ideal at the start of a meal. Understanding The Bubbles in Your Glass Sparkling wine is created by trapping the carbon dioxide that is produced while fermenting the grapes. The method used to trap those bubbles impacts the style and quality of the final wine, and its price point. “Pétillant naturel” (or pét-nats for short) are a fairly low-cost method to produce sparkling wine. Such wines are created when a still wine’s initial fermentation is paused while in the bottle. When the wine re-ferments later, CO2 becomes trapped inside. Pét-nats are especially popular in wineries that lack the expensive infrastructure to produce more complicated sparkling wine. The Charmat method (also known as the tank method) is the format used to produce Prosecco. The “liqueur de tirage” (a combination of sugar and yeast) is added to a base wine and processed in large steel tanks. These wines tend to have a more fresh fruit flavor, and are an economical way to mass-produce bubbly. The “Méthode Traditionnelle” is the most famous (and expensive) way to make sparkling wine. The liqueur de tirage is added to a finished still wine, creating a completely new fermentation inside the bottle. This process is difficult to manage without specialized equipment, which until recently has limited their availability…
By Matthew Fitzsimmons If wine competitions gave awards for witty comebacks, Walsh Family Wine’s “What Will the Women Drink?” red blend would win hands-down. The story started not long after Nate and Sarah Walsh got married. Their jobs were different but complimentary, with Sarah working as a wine importer and Nate as the winemaker for Sunset Hills Vineyard. Around 2013, they started discussing the possibility of a passion project, where she could learn his side of the business and he could learn hers. Fast forward a number of years, and this ‘passion project’ expanded from producing small batches of wine to operating their own winery. In 2019, they rechristened the former North Gate Vineyard as Walsh Family Wine. During their opening day, Sarah was confronted by a patron who asked her, “Excuse me, but are you the owner? I have some advice I’d like to give you”… and he proceeded to explain how Sarah should run her business, not letting her get in a word. Eventually this patron looked around and asked, “Exactly where will you be putting your wine slushy machine?” Sarah tried to laugh it off, insisting they would never get one. At this point the man looked at her, and with zero irony asked, “But what will the women drink?”. This comment would be bad enough if it was an isolated incident, but it’s not. Sarah has heard versions of this story for her entire professional career selling high-end wine. During her visits to places like Napa, Sarah found winemakers almost always cater to a male demographic. Rarely did they market big, bold reds to women. This gendered approach even extends to the way wines are described. Salespeople often describe big, tannic reds using masculine terms, and lighter-bodied whites as feminine. Only recently has there been a…
By Matthew Fitzsimmons Fall is one of the most popular times to visit Virginia wine country. While the season has everything from wine festivals, new vintage release parties, and harvest dinners, my favorite activity is to combine winery visits with a tour of Virginia’s fall foliage. The two themes overlap perfectly. Vineyards are generally located at higher elevation sites, guaranteeing great photos of the surrounding countryside. Many are also near state or national parks. The addition of fall colors guarantees the slogan “Grapes don’t grow in ugly places” becomes doubly accurate. Different parts of Virginia will reach their peak color anywhere between mid-October and early November, according to Explorefall.com. For ‘leaf peepers’ who want to get the most out of fall foliage in Virginia wine country, here is a guide on where and when to go. Mid to Late October: The Shenandoah Valley Peak foliage season begins in the Shenandoah Valley, Virginia’s oldest wine region. The valley’s relatively cool and dry climate create ideal conditions for viticulture, and the mountains that frame the area become a canvas for the season’s changing colors. While the Shenandoah Valley is home to a dozen wineries, two that particularly stand out for their fall colors are Muse Vineyards and Star in the Valley. Muse Vineyards (Woodstock). Muse is snuggled between the contours of the North Fork of the Shenandoah River, Seven Bends State Park, and the western slope of the Massanutten Mountains. While the best views are likely to be found from their deck, more adventurous wine drinkers should visit the elevated foot bridge that crosses the river. Make sure to try their Erato white blend, winner of the 2024 Shenandoah Wine Cup. Star in the Valley (Strasburg). Star is located along the edge of the valley’s northern entrance, hugging the contours of Devil’s…
By Matthew Fitzsimmons Establishing a wine brand is an expensive proposition. Start-up costs can range anywhere from tens of thousands of dollars for a small “garagiste”- setup, to millions to acquire a fully equipped tasting room, vineyard, and production facility. If that’s not enough, farm wineries face unpredictable weather, regulatory hurdles, and (especially lately) significant market fluctuations. Collectively, these challenges make the dream of owning a winery out of reach for many. These risks have sparked the rise of ‘wine incubators,’ including Common Wealth Crush Co (CWC), the Virginia Wine Collective (VWC), and Walsh Family Wine’s “Winemaker’s Studio”. All three offer different tiers of support for a variety of winery clients, including large-scale contract winemaking for tasting rooms that don’t produce their own wine. This model is widely available in Virginia. What sets CWC, the VWC, and Walsh apart from other contract winemakers is their ability to scale this support specifically to meet the needs of smaller wine brands. Established winemakers that lack their own production facility may only need access to expensive processing equipment. They essentially rent this equipment and floor space to make their own wine, sometimes using their own grapes and barrels. Wine startups have additional requirements. These new vintners often need a host that can also sell them grapes, mentor them in winemaking, and provide access to retailers. The host acts like a business incubator, giving their client the tools they need to succeed. Why Independent Brands – And the Producers That Support Them – Matter Virginia is home to over 20 limited-production wine brands that lack their own tasting room. These brands are usually only found at the facility they were produced at, or special pop-up events. These wines are amongst the most exciting in the state. Their owners have the creative freedom to indulge…
By Matthew Fitzsimmons Few Virginia wineries have what are sometimes called ‘old vines’. Those that do will most likely happily let you know about them, with the implication that “old vines = better wines”. But what does the term ‘old vines’ actually mean, and why are they important? There is no legal definition for what constitutes a wine made with ‘old vines,’ although private organizations have their own criteria. In 2024, the International Organization of Vine and Wine defined an “old vine” as a plant that is documented to be 35 years or older. Plots where 85% of such vines meet this criterion may be considered ‘old vineyards.’ Several other organizations, including the South African Old Vine Project and the Old Vine Registry, use these definitions. The Historic Vineyard Society has a different set of criteria, only certifying California vineyards with vines that are a minimum of 50 years old and when at least 1/3rd of producing vines can be traced to the original planting. Few old vines exist in Virginia. Prohibition wiped out Virginia’s wine industry, and it wasn’t until the 1970s that it started making a comeback. Even Virginia’s oldest wineries seldom have anything left of their original vineyards. Fortunately, a number of older vineyard plots do survive today. Such vines are living time capsules, representing the kind of wines Virginia’s viticultural trail blazers thought would perform best. Many of these surviving vines are Burgundy or Bordeaux varieties that remain popular today. Chardonnay is still produced at Virginia’s two oldest commercial vineyards, Meriwether Vineyard and Montdomaine Vineyard. Founded in 1976 and located at Pearmund Cellars, Meriwether is recognized by the Old Vine Registry as Virginia’s oldest vineyard. Montdomaine was founded in 1978 and is located just below Michael Shaps Winery. Older vineyards are also the home of varieties…
View More