Acorn Hill Winery
“From the fruits of a well-managed vineyard,
comes the promise of truly great wines.”
“From the fruits of a well-managed vineyard,
comes the promise of truly great wines.”
Happy New Year! Welcome to the second edition of the Acorn Hill Winery newsletter. In this installment, you’ll meet our winemaker, Frantz Ventre, as well as our hospitality manager, Anita LeGault. We’ll also report on our 2007 harvest and let you know about some upcoming opportunities to taste our wine. Enjoy!
When you grow up in France it’s pretty tough to not be involved somehow with wine. Frantz Ventre had decided by about the age of 16 that he wanted to be a winemaker, but his foray into the industry began much earlier — when he was just a toddler. "I had vineyards all around my house growing up," he said. "I was picking grapes at age three or four."
Frantz earned his degree in winemaking from the University of Bordeaux before coming to the United States to work at wineries in Virginia and New York for a half–decade. He came on board at Acorn Hill in September 2005. And he’s been working hard — and loving every minute — ever since.
From the 2007 harvest, Frantz estimates some 9,500 cases will be bottled. His hope is to top 25,000 in the next couple of years. Though the full–time staff is rather small, Frantz says it is definitely a team effort. From the vineyard to the processing to the bottling, "a lot of little pieces must fall into place."
The most important part? The grapes. "Everything starts outside," Frantz says. He spends the bulk of his time in the vineyard until the harvest is over, then his attention turns inside to work his magic in the fermentation and aging processes.
It’s tough to get any winemaker to tell you what their favorite wine is. Same is true with Frantz. With him, it’s not so much a favorite wine, as it is a favorite wine experience. "I remember wines that were shared with friends or family around a good meal," Frantz told us. "The wine makes the moment and it’s the good moments I remember."
And he hopes many happy moments for many people will come from his wines at Acorn Hill.
Hospitality might as well be Anita LeGault’s middle name. She has devoted her career to event management and the wine industry, all along the way enhancing her education to be able to give the very best to her clients. "I thrive on sharing my enthusiasm and knowledge of great food and wine," she says. "Good wine is an inspiration for me, and Frantz’s wines are giving me lots of it, so I am looking forward to imparting my enthusiasm in the tasting room and through the wine events that we will be presenting at Acorn Hill."
At Acorn Hill, another major focus for Anita as hospitality manager will be booking the event facilities for weddings and corporate events. Having a hospitality center that offers an elegant old–world reception hall to accommodate 200, an Art Gallery, and intimate Wine Library in addition to outdoor entertaining space, will provide many options for various kinds of events. "Successful event planning is a combination of highly–developed organization balanced with a creative vision, and the ability to trouble shoot in a New York minute" she says with a laugh. "The big pay–off is watching the guests enjoying themselves."
A certified sommelier, Anita came to Virginia most recently from the North Fork of Long Island where she was the retail marketing director for Lenz Winery.
Winemaker Frantz Ventre is quite pleased with the results of the 2007 harvest, which he hopes will yield an estimated 9,500 cases.
Looking back on the year, he admits April was a bit challenging. There was a frost, but everything turned out OK and the weather actually ended up being ideal for the rest of the season. "There was good rain at specific times," Frantz told us. "And the drought really didn’t affect us."
For harvesting, he said, "September was almost perfect." With so many good, sunny days, they had the luxury of deciding when they wanted to pick, as opposed to having Mother Nature decide for them.
Fermenting and aging take the bulk of the process time. Bottling will begin with the whites in April and reds starting in June and running through August. Featured varietals will include: Pinot Gris, Chardonnay, Viognier, Merlot, and Cabernet Franc.
With each season, Frantz says he hopes to learn more. He’s quiet about his age — shhhhh, he’s 37 — but will say every step of the way at Acorn Hill "has been a blast." And he’s confident he’ll still be learning when he celebrates his 60th birthday.
The ground has been broken. The framing is going up. And if you use your imagination — and OK look at the rendering below — you can see that Acorn Hill’s tasting facility will be something worth waiting for. Now scheduled to open this summer, the elegantly traditional designed structure will offer a public tasting room, private banquet facilities for up to 200, a private wine library for VIP dinners, a gift shop, and a gallery to feature the works of fine artists in the region and beyond. In a hopefully not–too–distant upcoming edition of the newsletter we hope to be able to take you inside for a sneak peek. So, stay tuned.
We’ll be at the following events with some of our great wines. Stop by and see us and have a taste.
We’ll have some "sneak peek" photos of the tasting facility construction. Also, you’ll meet our assistant winemaker, Caroline Porcher, and our vineyard manager Benjamin Abric.
Copyright © 2008 Acorn Hill Winery. All rights reserved.
Photos by Thomas J. Coon. Website by Energize.info
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