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.”
Welcome! Spring is approaching and activity is continuing at a hectic pace around the vineyard and the winery. We have a lot to tell you about and hope you'll take a moment to sit back and catch up with us with our newsletter. Enjoy!
Please visit our new website, look around a bit, and let us know what you think. You’ll find us at www.acornhillwinery.com. You can learn about our wines — and feel free to order a bottle or two. And be sure to click on the link for the 2007 Harvest Video Tour. You can get a behind-the-scenes look at the work involved in turning grapes into wine. Please tell your friends to visit our website, too. We’d appreciate it!
As promised we have some ìsneak peekî photos to let you see how things are coming along with the construction of our tasting facility. As you can see, much progress is being made and the work is being done carefully and deliberately. We’re sure it will be worth waiting for.
We’re still looking at a summer opening, so we’ll keep you updated.
Wine enthusiasts attending the Virginia Wine Showcase, held on February 9th&10th at the Dulles Expo Center, had the rare opportunity to taste and buy our first releases from the 2006 vintage. The Acorn Hill team was there in full force, and thrilled at the overwhelming positive response to the wines. The common feedback was how impressed they were with the excellence of each wine. Oftentimes wine enthusiasts are pleased to find one or two wines that they like from a single winery, so they were happily surprised to find that they had a hard decision as to which one they like the best! And we are happy to hear that!
Thousands of people filled the Richmond Convention Center February 16th and 17th for the Virgina Wine Expo showcasing some of the best Virginia wines. Acorn Hill was prominently featured and several of the staff complained of ìpourer’s elbowî as they poured so many tastes of our wines. And, just as we saw at the Virginia Wine Showcase, people had a hard time deciding which of our wines they liked the best. Not a bad problem to have! Thanks to everyone who came and tasted. We hope to see you at the winery when we open this summer.
Caroline Porcher has been involved in winemaking for more than six years. She started studying viticulture in Dijon, Burgundy where she earned her bachelor’s degree, then a one-year master’s degree in vine sciences. Further study in Bordeaux gave Caroline much active, hands-on experience in both the vineyard and the winery. Not all of it glamorous, much of it anything but, it was invaluable to her as she traveled down her career path.
A four–month stint in Chile found Caroline working as an assistant enologist in a winery where she was able to manage cellar teams, administrate large volumes of wine, and improve her speaking of the Spanish language.
Having joined Acorn Hill in 2007, Caroline spends the vast majority of her time in production, working closely with chief winemaker, Frantz Ventre. Having wanted to ìwork in a winery which produces a high quality wine,î Caroline says this will also be a great chance for her to work on her English. And she seems to be succeeding on all counts.
Fluent in both English and French, vineyard manager Benjamin Abric joined Acorn Hill Winery last year. He has worked at wineries in the US and France and is finding his time in the foothills of Central Virginia to be just to his taste.
In the vineyard, Benjamin must know every aspect of the fields. Everything from soil analysis to fertilization to weather forecasting, he has to stay on top of it to ensure the grapes have the best environment in which to grow. Things most of us may not even consider ñ thinning out leaves on the vines, topping, and disbudding ñ are all things Benjamin has on his mind and in his plan to ensure the vineyard is in top form. After all, it takes great grapes to make great wines.
An update on ìself-distributionî and when you may expect to see Acorn Hill wines on shelves in some of your favorite stores.
Copyright © 2008 Acorn Hill Winery. All rights reserved.
Photos by Thomas J. Coon. Website by Energize.info
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