Acorn Hill Winery

Welcome to the inaugural newsletter for Acorn Hill Winery. We’re excited to be moving along with our progress at the winery and looking forward to keeping you informed as we continue to make our way toward opening. Read on and find out what we’re up to!

Acorn Hill Winery has been three years in the planning stages, and we have now entered the execution phases. With a great deal of careful thought and commitment to investing what is necessary to fulfill our vision, we continue to move full steam ahead. Our vision fulfilled will offer premium wines produced from the AH state-of-the-art production facility, and an elegant hospitality center with breathtaking views, in which to enjoy our wines and a variety of events that will be both fun and educational. We are looking forward to having you at Acorn Hill Winery, to enjoy and embrace the Central Virginia Wine Country experience.

Production Facility Completed

We are thrilled that our state-of-the-art production facility was finished in time to process the 2007 harvest! Consisting of 26,000 square feet, the building is the heart of the winery operation. The process begins here at harvest, when grapes arrive on the crush pad, are sorted and gently transported into the fermentation tanks. The three levels in the production facility allows a gravity flow movement to the entire process, which provides a gentle handling of the berries — an important aspect of making premium wines.

We do have a limited supply of our 2006 whites and reds in bottles, but we won’t be releasing them for sale until next year when we open our tasting room and hospitality center. After all, we want to make sure we have plenty of wine to serve our guests once we’re officially open! That’s not to say we won’t crack open a bottle or two for wine critics and writers, though.

Meet the Team

This month, we want to introduce you to Acorn Hill’s owner, Jess Sweely, and its president, Marcie Siegel. In upcoming issues you’ll meet other members of the team.

Spend any time talking with Jess Sweely about his winery and you can’t miss his excitement for and devotion to this project. His eyes light up. Acorn Hill Winery is a labor of love for Jess and his family.

Jess is retired, but hardly retiring. He works full-time on winery business and is determined to have Acorn Hill be one of the big players in the Virginia wine industry. His strategic vision and entrepreneurial savvy ensure Acorn Hill will be a name to watch in the wine business.

Jess currently serves as a Trustee on the boards of several organizations including Joslin Diabetic Center (Boston, MA), Washington Performing Arts Society (WPAS) and is an active supporter of The Madison Boys & Girls Club.

Marcie Siegel is definitely a hands-on winery executive. With an extensive corporate background — more than 30 years experience in business, including project management, construction and sales.

Her entrepreneurial skills were proven at Gilbane Corporation (the largest family-owned construction company in the United States) where, responsible for sales and operations, she led a start-up consulting division to national success.

A Penn State graduate, Marcie continued to expand her education and in 2004 completed the University of California-Davis Graduate School of Management Wine Executive Program.

What’s Ahead

With the production facility completed, we are now focused on the construction of the tasting room, wine library and event facilities. The foundation is poured and the building will be under roof in early winter. If all goes according to plan (anyone with any influence with the weatherman, please let us know) we hope to be welcoming our first guests to the winery by early summer of 2008. Stay tuned for more details.

Sneak Preview of the next Newsletter

Next issue we’ll introduce you two other members of the team, Frantz Ventre, Acorn Hill’s French winemaker and Anita LeGault, the winery’s hospitality manager. Frantz will report on results of the 2007 harvest, and we’ll also take a look at artist renderings of the event facility.

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