Winery Visit- "First Colony Winery"

On Saturday, April 22, 2017, I went to First Colony Winery in Charlottesville, VA with my parents.  We had scheduled a winery tour, finishing with a tasting.  I have been to many wineries before but never have I had the chance to tour their facilities so I was very excited. 

The beautiful First Colony Winery.

We arrived early in the morning and met our guide.  She led us into the distilling room, were the wines are fermented.  She began telling us a little of the history of First Colony Winery.  It opened in 1988 but didn’t immediately grow its own fruit for production, relying on fruit from Mount Domain, using old chardonnay vies for their wine.  After a few years they planted their own vines, but still use the old chardonnay from Mount Domain.  The winery is currently owned by two owners, Jeff Miller and the couple Heather and Bruce Spiess.  Our guide also told us about the winery building itself, mainly its beautiful thatched roofs, and an iconic feature of the winery.  The roofs were built by one of the three master thatcher’s in the U.S. and were made from imported Turkish water reeds into the 16 inch masterpiece.  The roof is often a desirable feature in weddings that are held at the winery, and one of the wines was named after the thatch roof.

Stainless still distilleries holding wine for fermentation.

Looking at the vineyards.

After concluding on the history of the winery, we were told of the processes involved in the First Colony Wineries production.  First Colony Winery grows half of their own fruit, and have wines with the grapes Merlot, Petit Verdot, Petit Manseng, Chardonnay, Viognier, Riesling, Semillon, Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, and Lemberger.  They have 12 and a half acres, but only 9 and a half are currently producing.  They get a yield of 3-4 tons per acre.  They have a satellite vineyard and have a private grower that provides the winery with their Viognier.  The wines are fermented in steel containers and then aged in oak.  The oak differs for the wine.  For example they have two chardonnay wines, where they age one chardonnay in stainless steel and the other in French oak.  They use both French and American in their other wines.

A stack of American and French oaked wines.

I asked our guide about bottling and the future plans for the winery, and both answers were surprising.  They do not bottle on site, but rather a bottling truck goes around the different wineries in the area.  They rent the truck for two days and bottle their supplies, before it goes on to the next winery.  I found this really cool, as it took the stress out of maintaining the equipment for the winery and just seemed like a really inventive idea in a winery studded area.  The future plans that First Colony had were just as exciting, the winery was starting to create wines on tap.  This is where they would open up a few barrels and have costumers taste directly from the barrels, filling and possibly blending wines to their own taste on site.  I hope to come back after they have officially opened this service and try wines straight from the barrel they have been aging in. 

After this I started asking about the awards the winery has won, which have been numerous.

A selection of the FCW wine series and the various ribbons that adorn them.

The First Colony Winery promotes two series of wine, the FCW series and the 1607 Reserve series.  The reserve series is named after various elements around the winery, including, as mentioned before, the thatch wine.  Other elements include a fishing lure for the Silver Doctor, a weather vane for the Petit Manseng.  They won the top 3 white wines in the 2015 Montgomery Trail Cup.  They won the 2016 Rose Silver in the Montgomery Trail Cup, and won the 2015 for their Estate Reserve.  This is only a few of their awards, as seen by their many medals.  Not only is this winery well awarded for their great wines, but they have also won the award for being Virginia’s favorite tasting room, two years in a row!  Seeing how friendly everyone there was, I can’t help but agree.

At the end of the tour we sampled 12 different wines form the FCW and Reserve collections.

·       FCW Rose 2016: This delicate wine smelled of raspberries, and was very floral and sweet.  The taste was smooth on my palette and tangy, with raspberry and hints of lime.  I really enjoyed this wine.

·       FCW Riesling 2015: This wine used traditional capitalization, adding fruit juice after fermentation to add sugar content to the wine.  The smell was rather buttery and the wine tasted of lemons and had a fresh, tangy finish.

·       FCW Chardonnay 2014: This wine was fermented in stainless steel and had its fruit taken from Mount Domain, which has 40 year old vines planted in 1974.  The wine smelled clean and crisp, which was mirrored in the crisp, lemony taste of the wine, though the wine was slightly sour with a tangy aftertaste.

·       FCW Viognier 2015: This wine smelled of peaches and apricots.  It was a crisp, lemony wine with a sweet undertone in the finish.

·       Estate Chardonnay 2014: This was aged in new French oak.  The wine smelled buttery and had a lemon, mutter, earthy taste.

·       FCW Petit Manseng 2015: This had a high alcohol content of 15.8%, giving it a hot component.  This wine smelled fresh and floral, with a lot of tropical fruit notes.  The wine was very delicate and tangy, with many tropical fruits on the tongue, and a hot finish.

·       FCW Meritage 2015: This wine smelled of carnations, cherries, blackberries and pepper.  The wine was tannin heavy with components of cherries, blackberries and pepper.

·       FCW Lemberger 2015: This wine smelled of lighter fruits and earth.  The taste was mossy and foresty, with heavy tannins, pepper, earth, cherries.  I had some herbal spread on a piece of toast, which immediately softened the flavors, making it sweeter.  It had a cherry finish.

·       Silver Doctor 2014: This wine was remarkably dark purple in color.  Made from 18 months French oak, with American put in every now and then, the Silver Doctor is relatively new wine to the winery, but has been very popular.  The smell was very floral, full of blackberries, raspberries, plums and roses.  It tasted of plums, blackberries and had medium tannins with a pepper finish.  It was my favorite of the reds we tried.

·       FCW Claret 2014: This sweet, cherry smelling wine was a true blush, a mix of white and red grapes went into making it.  The taste was very sweet, delicate and full of raspberries.  I enjoyed this wine very much.

·       FCW Totier Creek White 2014: A very sweet smelling wine, full of notes of pears and apricots.  The taste was crisp and full of pears and honey.  This was my favorite of the wines we tasted.  In fact it was the wine I bought as my souvenir of our trip.

·       Thatch: So named after their amazing thatch roof, this wine is part of the Reserve series.  The bottle was a Tortuga bottle, like in Pirates of the Caribbean.  The smell was rather like cough syrup, very sweet.  As characteristic of a fortified wine.  The smell was also of cherries and plums.  The wine tasted like cherries, plums and sugar, with a hot finish.

I throughly enjoyed my experience during this tour.  It made me a die hard FCW fan and I can not wait to come back to this beautiful winery and its friendly. engaging staff.  I highly recommend going to visit this winery and trying every single one of their lovely wines (especially the Claret and Totier).  I hope next time I visit the vines are full of fruit.  I hope I have convinced you as well to go visit the First Colony Winery.

One last glass of wine before the road.