Recent News
At last, the Holidays are over – back to reality:
lose weight or die and with today’s trends in super-sizing there may
well be some truth in that. We are all busy getting over the good times – the
Holidays are perhaps like Happy Hour - what is happiness once the hour is over?
It is now the bleak cold of winter, hoar frost, freezing rain, bitter fingers
and bitterness. It is ten degrees below; we are all below in the deep cold
of winter. Then suddenly in the dreary bleakness the weather turns into a winter
fantasy - a fantastical event that stirs the soul and makes one feel the awesomeness
of nature – sometimes words are hopeless in expressing visual beauty.
You know when something is so beautiful that you feel a sense of awe—does
that sound better than “it looked awesome?” We all witnessed an
awesome day – the day of the ice storm. We heard the winter advisories
and what the Hey - they have been wrong before and they will be wrong again.
We planned to carry on with our plans to bottle a thousand cases – we
thought we would play it by ear!
Well we got that one
wrong! As dawn broke - OMG it was as if the world had been embalmed in ice;
every branch, every twig - the fir trees were bent in supplication to the might
of Mother Nature – she never fails to let us know who is boss. It was
not silent as after a snow storm - you know when you first step outside, utter
silence, snow dampened silence, no birds, no wind just blanketed silence? The
ice storm was different, it was actually raining and things were happening,
the drains were gurgling, 
the trees were groaning under the weight of the ice.
Freezing rain, is that an oxymoron? How can rain be freezing? It was raining
and it was freezing - a dynamic that causes more havoc than any nice, old comforting
snow storm. On “snow days” we usually snuggle up in bed, drink
cocoa and wait for it to be all over. Ice storms are different critters; the
roads were more treacherous--everything was more treacherous – power
outages, broken tree limbs, even broken human limbs. Snow storms are much friendlier
and lots more fun! The skies were so dark and the clouds so low that we could
not see the mountains. Dripping, soaking, cold wet, sodden, freezing rain – cancel
all plans. The truck with the bottling line could not negotiate the roads so
we had to cancel bottling. We even closed the tasting room - no one is going
out in this to taste wine, for Heavens’ Sakes!
Well wrong again Bat Man--just when we thought we were in for a siege, Mother
Nature reasserts herself. “Just kidding quotes she,” and in the
course of one to two hours the clouds rolled back, the temperature rose and
we witnessed a turnaround of nature thrown into a dazzling relief of sunshine,
snow and ice. We went from the depths of depression to the ecstasy of light,
bright, shining, almost blinding light, causing the vapors to turn head over
heels and head back up and over the hills. Almost as quickly, people showed
up at the winery and by four o’clock we were taking pictures of couples
on the deck!
In the Vineyard
This is the quietest time for us, especially in the
vineyard. The vines are shut down and as we prepare to prune, usually in early
February, Patricia is busy counting up the vines that did not make it through
the last vintage. We lose plants to various diseases – grape vine yellows
in the Chardonnay, sometimes cold-injury to the young plants - so we replace
20 Chardonnay here, 10 Sauvignon Blancs there. We have a new block of Petit
Verdot coming into production this year. The Virginia Vineyards Association
just featured Petit Verdot as one of Virginia’s up-and- coming grape
varietals. Especially when you realize that Petit Verdot won four gold medals
in the last Governor’s
Cup – Cabernet Franc look out - Petit Verdot may take over as the Virginia
specialty red wine!
You know how contrary wine growers are – we love
drought and cold winters—unlike everyone else we are praying that the
winter stays miserably cold. We don’t want warm winters because warm
winters mean early bud-break, like last year when we lost most of the Chardonnay
crop to the dreaded Easter freeze.
In the Cellar
The wine is silently
maturing in the barrels as Emily and Paul prepare the new vintages.
The 2007 Sauvignon Blanc is already in the bottle and this year we have made
a “Reserve” Sauvignon Blanc. It will not be on the shelves until
April or May- we will probably feature the wine as a spring special. The good
news is that the wine is fabulous (an absolute knockout) - the bad news is
that we only had enough to make 100 cases. Not to worry, we nevertheless made
350 cases of our regular Sauvignon that is as lovely as last year. We have
doubled our Rosé production from 250 to 500 cases – the Rosé and
regular Sauvignon just went on sale the weekend after Valentine’s.
More
in the way of sneak previews: back after popular demand and bearing the quality
that is the hallmark (not the trademark) of Veritas, we are bottling Chardonnay
and a Viognier 2007 on March 3rd. Then we wade into the 2007 reds that are ‘absolutely
fabulous.’
In the Tasting Room
In the tasting room this month John Harrington
is our centerfold personality. John is our most senior military advisor
and has been waging the battle for Veritas tastings, both at home (together
with his lovely wife Linda) and abroad, as far away as The Blackfriars
Playhouse in Staunton. Not only is John a stalwart trooper in the tasting
room but also a crucial officer in the Wine Corps, so he deserves at least
a mention in dispatches.
In the Kitchen
Said and Edward have had to have
their ducks (confit, of course) in a row for the Opportunity Ball and the
New Year’s Eve Masked Ball. We raised tons of money for Nelson County with
the Opportunity Ball – can you believe over $100,000.00 in one night?
Thanks to the efforts of everyone who contributed so unselfishly - we felt
proud to lead the charge at Veritas – follow that with an absolutely
super-duper fun time at the New Year Masked Ball – I never knew that
the prospects of a New Year could be such fun!
Veritas Around the World
Here’s a great idea
from Ron and Patsy Sable, long standing devotees of Veritas. They were tasting
our wines back in the days when we only had a single building and a tasting “area”-
forget a tasting room. Ron and Patsy are well traveled, if not globe trotters,
and they thought it would be neat for whoever travels the earth to send in
pictures of themselves, preferably wearing Veritas hats, say in Egypt or Istanbul – wherever.
We even have a shot of Patricia’s brother with his Veritas hat on, climbing
Anapurna in the Himalayas. So Ron and Patsy get first shot of ‘Veritas
around the World’ – not too hard to guess with the pyramids
in the background. By the way, with my new version of Photoshop just send
us a shot and I will add the Veritas hat!
Family Stuff
I told you that Emily is expecting number two - a girl. So far
the only name I’ve come up with is “Secunda,”(#2). Pretty
original, eh!
The ethnic enclave of Limeys continues
to develop as the constructs of Aftonshire takes on what will probably be named “The
Peaks of Afton.”
Well that’s all the news
from Veritas where all the women are beautiful and all the wines are above
average. We will feature the men in the next newsletter! Don’t forget
Puxatawney Phil predicted another six weeks of winter!
All the best (that’s
all you get at Veritas),
Andrew Hodson, Chief Bottle Washer and Winemaker,
and the cru at Veritas.