by Richard Leahy | Oct 7, 2017 | Events, Virginia Wine, Winery Visits
To kick off October Virginia Wine Month I accepted an invitation to attend the Powhatan Festival of the Grape southwest of Richmond, now in its 15th year. I had seen names of many wineries I hadn’t visited yet and was looking forward to tasting their wines. I haven’t...
by Richard Leahy | Jun 14, 2017 | Regions & Terroir, Tastings/Evaluations, Varietals, Winery Visits
TasteCamp, an annual “wine camp” event organized by Long Island-based wine writer Lenn Thompson of The Cork Report, is open to the wine media who pay to attend a long weekend in the wine country of a specific region. The eight years old TasteCamp brought...
by Richard Leahy | Apr 19, 2017 | Regions & Terroir, Virginia Wine, Winery Visits
I was driving to the Homestead in early April when I saw end posts behind a brick wall which sure looked like evidence of a vineyard. On the way back, I turned and drove up the driveway for a closer look. I came upon what looked like (and turned out to be) a research...
by Richard Leahy | Feb 18, 2017 | Tastings/Evaluations, Uncategorized, Winery Visits
Maryland’s first post-Prohibition winery, Boordy Vineyards located in a very peaceful, undeveloped corner of Baltimore County, began as a vineyard in 1945 where Philip Wagner, the editor of the Baltimore Sun, had succeeded the great H.L. Mencken. Wagner experimented...
by Richard Leahy | Nov 28, 2016 | Regions & Terroir, Tastings/Evaluations, Winery Visits
As the winter starts to close in around us… although temps on November 30th will be around 70F… we may turn our thoughts towards warm refuges around the Gulf or “California Dreamin”. This column is about the latter, since I enjoyed a fine afternoon in the...
by Richard Leahy | Aug 31, 2016 | Regions & Terroir, Winery Visits
Recently I drove down the Blue Ridge Mountains to Highland, NC and from there, to two of the northernmost wineries in Georgia. On the way I stopped at Biltmore Palace (hey, it is what it is) outside Asheville, NC and tasted their (few) estate fruit wines. Biltmore...
