The day after the Fourth of July, I had the pleasure of visiting two outstanding wineries in Virginia: Rockbridge Vineyard, founded in 1992 in Raphine, near Roanoke; and Valhalla Vineyards, started in 1993 on a mountain within the Roanoke city limits, and the city's first winery.
Both wineries are owned and operated by winemakers that have qualifications that are every bit as world-class as their wines. Those made by Rockbridge Vineyard's P. Shepherd Reuse, a homespun former Fulbright scholar in Germany, have won important awards in national and state competitions. Valhalla's wines, newly marketed last month, are the joint product of Jim Vascik, a neurosurgeon, and his wife Debra, a physiotherapist.
Before launching their promising new winery, the Vasciks delved deeply into enology and viticulture at Virginia Polytechnic University, fast emerging as an important center for wine-related studies. He grows the fruit, she makes the wine. They had already had wine-worthy chardonnay grapes by 1997, the third year after planting and a year earlier than the norm.