Naked Mountain Winery & Vineyards | Virginia Wineries | Markham, VA

Holy Harvest, Batman!

Having finally found a minute to sit at my desk, I’m astonished to be reminded that our last blog post was in August. AUGUST! Wow – how time flies. Since our last post so much has gone on – but to sum it all up – harvest. The Merriam -Webster definition of harvest is the season or act of gathering crops – but here on the mountain it means so much more. Of course we gather our crops (grapes), but we also take those crops and make something spectacular from them. Using techniques that have, essentially, gone unchanged for centuries, we take the unassuming juice from tiny grapes, and create an entirely new product that features the essence of what happened on the vine. The culmination of a year’s work in a bottle – well for now a tank or barrel, we haven’t gotten to bottling yet.

There is a lot of doom and gloom floating around regarding the 2011 growing season. Yes, it started out wonderfully and then went down the toilet. So much promise lost in a matter of days. Yes, we had more rain in September than we knew what to do with, even outside the hurricane. But no, the season is not lost. Thanks in great part to our partnership with some of Virginia’s finest growers (and I can say that now because I saw our fruit in this “horrible” season), Naked Mountain is going to come out of this season just fine. Here in Virginia we face challenging seasons with some regularity, but with talented people in the vineyard who have their focus on what happens in the bottle, the entire team here on the mountain can’t wait to see what this vintage brings.

Now on to the fun part – wine tasting. We had a record number of people come out this harvest to partake in a little leaf-peeping and wine tasting, and man was it fun. Spending most of my time behind the scenes, I forget how great it is to meet so many wonderful people who are so passionate about the same thing you are. People who want to see you succeed, who want to see Virginia take its place among the world’s finest wine growing regions, and who can’t wait to share in the product you are so proud to make. Thank you to everyone who came out to make our October a huge success. We hope we didn’t disappoint!

As the season winds down, it’s time to not only reflect on this year and look at our successes and opportunities, but it’s also a time to look forward to lasagna, and my ever expanding waistline. When we got here just over a year ago we thought, “What could be so great about lasagna?” I can’t even put into words how wrong we were. I’m rationing myself to one a week – unless Meagan is traveling and then all bets are off – I mean come on – it’s real food and I don’t have to go anywhere or cook anything. We can’t wait to have the smell of Chef Stamer’s delicious lasagna wafting through the winery each Saturday and Sunday starting in January and lasting through the end of March. We hope you’ll come share in this delicious Naked Mountain tradition.

I’ve gone on long enough – but now that harvest is waning, I’ll have a little more time to share all the fun things that happen here at Naked Mountain, and who knows, maybe you’ll get to hear what others here on the mountain are thinking as well. So for now, as the weather cools, cozy up to a fire, or a space heater, snuggle with someone special, and spend a little time Drinking Naked together.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 22nd, 2011 at 11:17 am and is filed under News & Updates. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.