Veraison – The Small, but Mighty, Change in the Grapes!

I don’t know if you’ve seen my new little brother, but Wyatt has some pretty big paws to grow into and not just physically.  As I slow down, I am making sure to teach Wyatt everything I know about grapes, vineyards, wines, and (most importantly) how to walk up and greet each of you as you come to visit us at the vineyard.  Don’t worry, Mom, I am not teaching him how to ask for food. 

Winston whispering all of the secrets of being a wine dog!

Part of Wyatt’s training has taken us on many walks through the vineyard, and we noticed something really interesting happening this week.  Our grapes have reached the veraison phase of the season! This phase is when grapes start changing color and is most visible in red grapes as they turn from their bright green to purple hues.  You can also see it happen in the white grapes if you look closely; the color of those change from bright green to a more translucent golden color. Once this happens, the grapes will fully ripen over the course of the next month or two. 

Veraison presenting in our Viognier grapes.

This milestone in the grape’s development occurs when the vines begin to focus on nourishing the grapes with their energy instead of just creating more energy.  As a result the grapes double in size, their sugar levels increase, their acidity falls, and the aroma compounds that make wines fruity and complex begin to develop.  

Petit Verdot Grapes

During this time, the grapes also develop polyphenols in their skin.  This helps to protect the grapes from environmental elements like the sun and wind.  Unfortunately, these polyphenols don’t protect the newly sweet grapes from all of the creatures who want to eat them, and you will see us wrapping our vines in the protective netting in the next few weeks.  

Cabernet Franc in all of its “hue”ty!

Make sure you take a trip to see the vines before the beautiful colors are covered up, and if you are lucky, you might just see me showing Wyatt the ropes of being a winery dog!

The Evolution of a Wedding Venue: From Six Penny Farm to Brix & Columns Vineyards

What’s in a name?  When you come to visit us here at Brix & Columns Vineyards, you will find out that we put a lot of thought into the naming of each step of our journey.  When we first built our house in 2007, we named our farm Six Penny Farm as a nod to the fact that we are the Pences and there are 6 of us: Mom, Dad, and four children.  Our friends and family loved the property and the views from our house, and several folks asked us if we would be open to the option of becoming a wedding venue.  

Our original farm sign.

Since we were juggling our careers, parenting, and farming, the option seemed a little daunting at the time. Fast forward 8 years and our eldest child, Taylor, was ready to get married.  As he was taking his big step into another chapter of life, we decided to take a big step into our own next chapter, and our wedding venue The Columns at Six Penny Farms was born! The name referenced both our farm and the stately columns at the front of our home. 

Taylor and Laura celebrating on their special day!

We purchased a large event tent that we set up out back, and we planned on hosting cocktail hour on our back porch. All we were really missing was the perfect ceremony site.  We thought about which side of the house had the best views, and we quickly chose the view from our side porch. The panoramic views available there of rolling fields and blue-hued mountains are hard to beat.  We had the pergola built just in time for Taylor and Laura’s wedding (our inaugural ceremony), and we love the fact that their names and wedding date are signed in the concrete under the brick. Tune in to our next blog to hear the cutest story about the construction of the pergola!

Things went great for a few years, but it was hard to get a good night sleep anytime the tent was up and the night was windy.  All it took was a well-placed gust, and we would be scrambling the next morning to get everything set back in place for the day’s festivities.  

The event tent set up behind our house.

In the meantime, we were contacted by a local vineyard approached us about leasing land to grow grapes.  After coming to look, the vineyard owners said that the land was ideal for growing vines, but those vineyard owners eventually found some land closer to home. Once we realized our land had vineyard potential, we invited several other vineyard consultants out to look at our land, and we also began taking viticulture classes at Piedmont Valley Community College.  In the spring of 2016, we planted their first grapes (Petit Verdot and Viognier) and in the fall of that year we broke ground on the Brix & Columns Vineyard building. Since Brix is a wine term and Columns references both our original venue name and the columns that are a prominent feature of our Jeffersonian architecture, the name Brix & Columns combines both the wine and wedding elements of our operation!

A photo of the Brix & Columns building, the house, and the pergola.

Every step of our journey has helped us grow into the space we are now!

Minerality?! What Does This New Term Mean?

Now, I know I am no expert in this world of wine. My specialty is more along the lines of being able to sniff out who has the good food stashed in their coolers, but I have done a lot of research and a lot of listening around the tasting room.  One term that seems to have everyone scratching their heads – including me – is minerality. Even after all my research, I don’t have any real conclusive information to share with you.

A lot of people think that minerality comes from the vines soaking up the minerals in the soil in which they grow.  From my understanding, that would technically be impossible since the trace amounts of minerals present in the grapes are so small that they could never be detected by human taste buds.  Besides that, many minerals are added to and taken from the wine during the wine-making process. What is curious about this theory is that some regions produce more wines with noticeable minerality than other regions.    

Although sometimes described as a taste, minerality really describes an experience, instead.  The term helps describe the combination of the smell, taste, and mouthfeel of the wine. One article I read called minerality the umami aspect of wine.  When I read that, I knew I had heard the term before, and I quickly recalled that it was mentioned during a meeting with Mikey from Mashita, he explained the umami taste and why it is important to lend savory qualities to foods.  

Minerality works in the same way with wine.  It helps the wine drinker notice all of the other characteristics of the wine by activating the salt receptors in the taste buds.  While it is difficult to put this experience into words, some words that you might hear used to describe a wine that has a minerality quality present are chalk, graphite, oyster shell, wet sidewalk, or crushed rock.  When you are tasting wine at Brix & Columns, you may notice the quality or minerality in our rosé and cabernet franc wines.  

Even though it hasn’t made its way onto the Davis Wine Aroma Wheel, minerality is a term making rounds more and more frequently in the wine world, so you are sure to hear it as you make your rounds to all the great vineyards in Virginia and beyond.  While not everyone understands completely what it means, I hope this blog gave you a bit more grasp of it next time you hear it in the tasting room. I’ll keep nosing around for more information, and hopefully I will find some tasty treats my mom has stashed away for me along the way!