By Andrew Hodson and Veritas Vineyard and Winery Tasting:  Acid/Sugar Balance I’ve spent time in the series describing how best to analyse wine as part of our understanding and evaluation of any wine be it sparkling or still.  We have to, as a first step, witness the properties of the wine we are tasting and […]

How to understand Sparkling Wine – the continuing  saga. By Andrew Hodson of Veritas Vineyard and Winery We saw last week that when you actually taste something, say for example a Veritas Mousseux the smell and taste combine to create what we call-”flavor.” The problem is there is no way that we can measure what […]

With Andrew Hodson, Veritas Vineyard and Winery I want to continue my saga in praise of traditional method sparkling wine to encourage you all to enjoy with me the delights of our latest release of 2015 Scintilla.  The very essence of Scintilla as a sparkling wine and what distinguishes it from all the competition is […]

by Andrew Hodson | Veritas Vineyard & Winery – Charlottesville, VA What’s a Pet Nat got to do with Sparkling Wine? I talked last week of how the British were formative in what was to become  the product we now know as “Champagne” but before Champagne became Champagne there existed a way of making wine […]

By Andrew Hodson, Veritas Winery in Charlottesville, VA “You must be kidding – we all know that sparkling wine originated in and around the Champagne region of France -that’s why it is called Champagne because that’s where the grapes are grown and the wine is made.” Only sparkling wine that comes from that specific region […]

How can Monticello as a small wine growing region in Virginia create a high quality wine that reflects  a sense of the quality of wine characteristic of Monticello or what some people call “Regional Typicity” All of us have a memory that is so clear and vivid that we can remember exactly what we were […]

“I have a very soft spot indeed for its more charming and more aromatic relative, Cabernet Franc.  -Jancis Robinson Editor of the Oxford Companion of Wine – referring to Cabernet Sauvignon Did you know there is a wine from California called “Marilyn Merlot”? Well how about a Virginia Cabernet Franc called “Franc Sonata” it’s catchy; […]

By Andrew Hodson | Veritas Vineyard and Winery, Charlottesville, VA Believe it or not there is also a grape called Gros Manseng, the “petit” and “gros”refer to the actual size of the grapes themselves, petit is small and gros is big. So Petit Manseng is a grape with small berries originally from the south west […]

This spring newsletter may seem late but I’m sorry  it is still spring until the first day of summer June 21st, so rather like my winter newsletter this is a retrospective look at the spring of 2020. It is hard to imagine that so much has happened to so many people at a local, state […]

A 2020  Winter Retrospective Ah the balmy days of winter! That was the winter that was not. I hate to say it but I was tempted to put up the 2017 Winter Newsletter to see if anyone noticed the difference between now and then. Our winters are disappearing just like the Monarch butterflies, the glaciers […]