Recent News

Vine with IceAt 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, Winter Sunshinethe 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
John HarringtonIn 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
Masked Ball 2007Said 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
EgyptHere’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!

Lydia Hailey and AftonshireFamily 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.