Winery Tour: The Williamsburg Winery

I went to visit my best pal Nicole this past weekend in Williamsburg, and we took a quick drive on February 24 from her house to the Williamsburg Winery at Wessex Hundred. When we pulled up to Wessex Hundred, there was a wedding photoshoot for a magazine happening, as well as an actual wedding, so it limited where we could take pictures outside. It was a GORGEOUS day out, though.

The Williamsburg Winery vineyard - the Chardonnay grapes

Nicole at the entrance of the main building

While we were waiting for the tour to begin, we watched a short video on the history of Wessex Hundred and the winery. I also asked if the tour guide could go into extensive detail with me after, hence the long blog post. The tour was only supposed to be an hour, but we were there for three (Yikes, sorry Nicole + our tour guide).

The waiting/video room with original sketches of the farm

The winery came to be when Patrick Duffeler and his wife were living in Switzerland for his job, and his wife asked him if they were just going to travel forever and what the next steps of their lives were. Patrick thought about it a lot, and remembered he had spent a lot of time as a child in Williamsburg with his parents. He flew to Williamsburg and scoured some properties, and in 1983 ended up buying 300 acres of a farm and planning where the vineyards, hotel, and winery that is all collectively now known as Wessex Hundred. Everyone thought he was crazy for wanting to create a winery in Williamsburg.

In 1985, Duffeler planted the first grapes on a 3 acre size plot. He planted chardonnay grapes with plants from Jochem Hollerith. By 1986, he planned to have 35 acres of various varietals planted. By 1987, Duffeler had decided to focus on a wine that was fruity, young, and easy to drink. The winery created a blend of Vidal and Riesling and named it "Governer's White." The first bottle was opened on January 22, 1986 and the first actual harvest was in 1988.

We started the tour talking about the varietals and the cycle of viticulture that the winery goes through. Fast forward and the farm now has 38 acres under cultivation. There are eight varietals planted as of May 2017 - Cabernet Franc, Merlot, Petit Verdot, Chardonnay, Vidal Blanc, Viognier, Traminette and Albarino.

The vines are planted right alongside the road to get to the tour building

The winery prunes the branches in the winter, and trains and ties the vines in the spring, then in early summer the fruit sets and clusters begin branching into individual fruit, they green prune in the summer and the vines are kept cut short so the plant can focus, then cluster thinning occurs in the summer as well to allow for better fruit, then they harvest in late August to mid-October from whites to reds and then late harvest wine. They do controlled harvesting of 4 tons per acre.

We went down to the cellar and let me tell you, it was cold. I had to get on my tippy toes to see the crush pad through the windows. We couldn't see the crush pad due to the wedding happening right beside it, but for the actual production, the grapes are harvested by hand in the morning and they have grapes brought in from other vineyards, then the grapes are pumped into the stemmer and crusher, and the white wine grapes are pumped into a must chiller and then put into dejuicing tanks, and emptied into bladder presses where the rest of the juice is extracted, then it's fermented in 55F, filtered, and pumped into the tanks or barrels. On the other hand, the red wine grapes are fermented with the skins on at 85F and then pressed.

The belt and to the far left, the air and nitrogen blower to clean and get rid of the air in bottles, to the right the corker

The nitrogen blower and foil station. Each bottle is hand foiled. 

For the bottling process, the winery produces over 40,000 cases of wine a year and can bottle up to 1,000 bottles in an hour. The bottles are placed on a belt and the sparge rotates the bottle and a blast of air removes dust, and then nitrogen removes the air. The bottles are then filled and blasted again to remove the air, then it gets corked and the foil is put on by hand, tightened and heated while being spun, then the bottles are labeled front and back, then the belt takes them to the next room, turned upside down, and packed into cases.

The red wine cellar barrels

Even more red wine cellar barrels

The date on the top is the vintage year and the date on the sticker is the day the wine was placed in the barrel. This red wine was just placed into this barrel one week ago. 

Our first stop was the red wine cellar. Most of the red wine and white wine was stored in barrels. They use a variety of oak, from American, which is least expensive, French, which is the most expensive, and Hungarian/Romanian, which is in between. The red wine cellar can hold up to 800 barrels when stacked to the ceiling, which is wild considering one of their barrels 60 gallons of wine, or 300 bottles. They have their red wines in the barrel for 14-26 months, and white wines (mostly Chardonnay) for 8-10 months.

Our next stop was the reserve cellar. I wasn't able to take a photo because there was a tasting going on and that would just be weird of me to take a picture of wealthy strangers. This cellar can hold 5,000 bottles, but has about 2,000 right now. Our guide explained that the winery uses natural cork because of the Old World tradition, allowing small amounts of oxygen. However, because most of their wines are meant to be drunk young (2-4 years of vintage), most of their wines use synthetic corks nowadays.

The stainless steel storage tanks are massive dessert wine storage units, and there were at least a dozen of them.

Next we saw some their steel tanks. The tanks are 1400 gallons and 3200 gallons, so they can hold 7,000 bottles and 3200 bottles, respectively. They're primarily used for their dessert wines. Their white wine is immediately destemmed and pressed, but their red wines are destemmed and then put into the tank for maceration and fermentation. The red wines are fermented warm in tanks outside, and after fermentation the reds get pressed then racked into barrels.  Next were the concrete eggs. I had never seen one before and it was weird, but oddly cool. The tour guide explained that these eggs are ideal for fermentation and allow the wine to breathe without imparting any oak flavors that a barrel might, and the egg shape causes the wine to move constantly during fermentation, keeping the lees moving. They have three concrete eggs, each named Sheldon 1, Sheldon 2, and Sheldon 3, from Garfield & Friends.

Sheldon One - Concrete egg that is porous, but sealed so the red wine doesn't escape

In this cellar we also saw the Pall Filtration machine. I actually tripped over the hose connected to the machine multiple times, as did my friend. Talk about embarrassing. The filtration machine is a cross-flow filtration, so it's gentler on the wine, and is a 2 micron filter that replaces the need for racking, once filtered, the wine goes into the barrels for storage.

All of the wine in the facility is filtered using this machine.

The tour ended with the wine tasting.

The wines that we tasted from left to right

The tasting sheet 

The Chardonnay and Riesling

• 2016 John Adlum Chardonnay - 100% Chardonnay 
• Their review - Aged primarily in stainless steel resulting in apple and citrus notes with a very nice clean finish. Consider pairing this wine with seafood or a mixed green salad. 
• My review - It smelled very fruity and light. The body was light, it went down smooth, and it tasted like lemons and oranges. 
• 2016 Governor's White - 100% Riesling  (their best-selling wine!)


• Their review - Tropical fruits such as pineapple, passion fruit, star fruit followed by blueberry, strawberry, plum and a touch of lemon
• My review - This was SOOOO GOOD. It smelled faintly of honey but tasted like passion fruit and lemon. It transported me back to when I was in the Dominican Republic and literally picked passion fruit of the tree and ate it.

Tasting the chardonnay - SO good

Merlot and Zinfandel

• 2016 Two Schilling Red - 100% Zinfandel (Cali)
• Their review - Upfront jammy fruit including strawberry, raspberry, and cherry with hints of earthiness
• My review - Smells like light cherries and milk chocolate. Tasted like green tea, herbs, and dirt.

• 2015 J. Andrews Merlot - 100% Merlot
• We tasted this wine with aged white cheddar
• Their review - Fruit intensity of raspberry, strawberry, cherry and blueberry with hints of figs and plums, warm cinnamon spice with a creamy vanilla and cocoa touch
• My review - Smelled like strawberries, tasted like blueberry pie thick with cinnamon. The cheese did help cut the tannins and make it smoother 

• 2015 Barrel Aged Claret - 37% Petit Verdot, 32% Cab Sauvignon, 31% Cabernet Franc

  

  Claret and Petit Fleur

• Their review - A lighter style fruit forward wine expressing some pleasant raspberry, strawberry, cherry and figs. The finish is clean, bright, and fruity and lingers on the palate. This should make a good wine to pair with many bistro foods.
• My review - This wine smelled like dried cranberries. It was INCREDIBLY dry and tannic, it tasted like raspberries and dark cherries. 
• 2016 Petit Fleur - 79% Vidal Blanc, 21% Moscato
• Their review - A beautiful amber gold color with an abundance of apricot, pear, tangerine, honeydew melon and a hint of tropical fruit. There are also notes of honeysuckle, orange blossom, rose petals and honey to round out the fragrances of the wine. Delicious with fresh fruit, Stilton cheese, or various after-dinner delicacies. 
• My review - This wine smelled very floral, like roses. It tasted like straight up honey and oranges, but I did get some melon after drinking Nicole's too (haha, bad friend) and left a coat on my tongue like having a teaspoon of honey would.

The Petit Fleur

These next two were a choice. I got the spiced wine and Nicole got the raspberry wine.

Williamsburg Winery Limited Vin Licoreux de Framboise

The spiced wine (cellartracker)

• Jamestown Cellars Settler's Spiced Wine 



Nicole and her raspberry wine

• Their review - Using a red wine base and infusing a carefully balanced blend of spices, the wine comes through with dark fruit and berries

• My review - It smelled like a Yankee candle in the worst way possible. I was immediately hit with cinnamon, which made me think of Fireball. Which made me gag. It tasted JUST LIKE FIREBALL, I tasted cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg. I could NOT finish this wine. 
• Vin Licoreux de Framboise (Red wine with raspberry)
• Their review - A very pleasant dessert wine which will go well with many desserts such as rich cheesecake with fresh berries or anything with chocolate in it 
• Nicole's review - It smelled like raspberry cheesecake and tasted like raspberry jam.

I felt bad for asking a million and five questions, so I only asked about some of the first few awards won. The first award the winery won was the Norfolk Yacht Club 1988, Best of Virginia wine, and in 1988 they also won the Governor's Cup.

As for the future, they are adding Tannat and Petit Manseng, and their first batch of Albarino is coming out in April. They're releasing 9 wines over 9 weeks beginning in March, so I'm planning on coming back again then!


This was a lot of fun and it was great to have my best friend with me!

10 years of friendship

Realizing the amount of homework I have