Early Mountain, 2019 Quaker Run Vineyard Cabernet Franc, Virginia, USA
Early Mountain's story begins in 2005 with the first vineyards being established by Jess and Sharon Sweely. In 2010, the property was purchased by Jean and Steve Case, and the winery first opened its doors in 2012. Their winemaker, Maya Hood White, a California native who studied at UC Davis, joined the Early Mountain team in 2014, and assumed the role of assistant winemaker in 2017, and as of the 2022 vintage is now head winemaker.
Early Mountain has 55 acres of vineyards, of which 8.6 acres, so about 3.5ha, are planted with Cabernet Franc. In addition to this, they are also working with some growers for select bottlings of Cabernet Franc, such as their Shenandoah Springs bottling. While Early Mountain is a relatively new winery on the Virginia wine scene, they have quickly established themselves as a leading producer in the state, and they are big proponents of Cabernet Franc. In addition to their single varietal bottlings, the grape makes its way into several other wines, including their sparkling rosé, still rosé, and other red blends. And from the 2019 vintage alone, they released five different single-varietal Cabernet Francs, and if that isn't an indication of their love of this grape, I don't know what is.
As I have not had much opportunity to cover the Virginian wine landscape, let me do my best to summarize some of the key elements that impact the growing environment across the state.
First and foremost, grapes are grown for winemaking in nearly all corners of the state. And Virginia is a fair size, at its widest point, it stretches over 600km, that's nearly 400 miles, from east to west, and it's nearly 300km, or 180 miles, from north to south. The state can be loosely divided into 10 principle growing regions, which are home to 8 official AVAs, at latitudes between 36N and 39N latitude, which, if we drew a line over to Europe, that would put us roughly in area that covers nearly all of Southern Portugal and southwestern Spain.
So, by virtue of how large of an area this is, we will see quite a bit of variability in terms of regional microclimates. But there are some generalizations we can make.
Virginia's eastern and western borders are bound by two geographical elements that define the climate of the growing regions. There is the Atlantic Ocean to the east and the Appalachian Mountains, and more specifically the Blue Ridge mountain range, to the west. Our proximity to the Atlantic makes this feature the main influence in terms of the climate, bringing higher amounts of precipitation and higher humidity, with precipitation ranging from 1000 to 1200mm annually, and the precipitation does fall in consistent amounts throughout the year. The summers are warm to hot, with higher humidity. In general, the growing environment would be characterized as moderate maritime, increasing in continentality as you move westward, with cooler temperatures and less precipitation as you move inland. And the amount of precipitation and the humidity are certainly limiting factors as to what grape varieties will work well here.
As we move west across the state, we start to see the impact of the Blue Ridge Mountains, which separate Central Virginia, this area known as Piedmont, which is on the eastern side of the Blue Ridge Mountains, from the Valley and Ridge and Appalachian plateau zones, which are on the western side of the Blue Ridge Mountains.
The Blue Ridge mountain range impacts the elevations found across the state, so we find vineyards at altitudes ranging from around 100m above sea level, to as high as 425m above sea level, which the majority of vineyards hovering between 150 to 275m above sea level. These foothills will also impact aspect or exposures, which will determine the amount of sunshine a vineyard will receive, as well as the slope, which is important for drainage.
In terms of soils, Virginia is quite geologically diverse, and we find nearly every soil imaginable here, from alluvial and colluvial soils, limestones, sandstones, gneiss, granite, and and everything in between. Generally speaking, we find 4 broad groups of soils. In the east, at lower elevations, we find clays and silts of the Coastal Plain, across central Virginia, an area known as Piedmont, we find predominantly metamorphic soils such as gneiss, schists and slate, with pockets of soils of volcanic origin, such as granites; third we have the narrow chain soils that are part of the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, which are very ancient sandstones, granites, greenstones and gneiss, and finally we have the soils to the west of the Blue Ridge Mountains which are comprised of sandstones, shales, limestones and dolostones.
All this is to say, with this wide variety of elevations, aspects, slopes and soils, coupled with more wet and humid environment, site selection becomes very critical for the success of what variety works well where, which is partly why we see over 28 different of grape varieties grown across the state. Currently there's around 4300 acres under vine across the state, that's around 1700 hectares, and most of the vineyard plantings are concentrated in the Central and Northern Virginia regions. Perhaps as a surprise to many, the number one planted grape variety in the state is Cabernet Franc. In 2021, Cabernet Franc surpassed Chardonnay as the number 1 planted grape in the state, with approximately 645 acres planted, that's around 260ha, representing about 15% of the total area under vine.
I can see a lot of reasons why Cabernet Franc would be happy here. Cabernet Franc appears to adapt well to these more moderate, maritime, moist environments, as we have seen in places like Bordeaux, Irouleguy, and even Uruguay. But, the summers can get a little warm for Cabernet Franc, so the key would be finding those "goldilocks" spots which are warm, but not hot, with good sun exposure to minimize the pyrazines, and deeper soils that balance drainage, moisture retention capacity, and vigour.
Which brings us to the Early Mountain's Quaker Run vineyard is located about 14 miles, that's about 22km, north of the winery. We're situated at the northern end of the Central Virginia region, in Madison County, about 30 miles, or 48km, north-northeast of the city of Charlottesville on the eastern side of the Blue Ridge Mountains. We're quite a ways inland from the Atlantic, in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, at an elevation of around 290m above sea level, or 950ft. This positioning and elevation means we will see a wider diurnal range in temperatures, so cool evenings to offset the warm days, which will slow down ripening and preserve acidities. We're also on south-facing slope, of moderate steepness, about a 20% grade, and that south-facing slope will give good sun exposure, which is helpful in the later stages of ripening to minimize the pyrazines, and the slope will be very good to drainage.
In terms of soils, this is part of the state where we find a lot of complexities to the soils, because of the nature of the topography being in the foothills of the Blue Ridge mountains. Maya told me that the soil in this vineyard are colluvial soils, that is soils derived through erosion. They are part of the Unison soil series, which is a sandy clay-loam that are deep, well-draining, with a high rock and mineral diversity, with rocks likely a combination of what is typically found at higher elevations, such as shales, sandstones, limestones.
This site was planted in 2015 as part of the winery's vineyard expansion, and they planted 1.25ha, that's about 3 acres, of Cabernet Franc at this site. They are working with both clones 214 and 327 in this block, those are the Loire and Bordeaux clones respectively. Maya shared with me that in a short period of time, with the combination of the soils, the positioning, and constant air flow the site receive, Cabernet Franc has adapted quite well to this vineyard and is showcasing a very special profile, and as a result, they've actually since pulled out other varieties that were initially planted here in favour of planting more Cabernet Franc.
From a winemaking perspective, the fruit is hand-harvested, and they do two separate picks of the east and west blocks of the vineyard. The fermentation is 20% whole cluster, with the remaining destemmed. Fermentation is stainless steel, with a total time on skins of about 3 to 4 weeks. Aging takes place in larger mostly neutral French oak, 500L to 1000L, with a total aging of about 16 months before bottling.
Key wine wine facts below:
Producer: Early Mountain
Region: Virginia, USA
AVA: Central Virginia (Madison County)
Vineyard: Quaker Run Vineyard
Soils: Colluvium sandy clay-loam (part of the Unison soil series), with high percentage of rocks/stones
Alcohol: 13.5%
