August in the Vineyards @ Little Washington Winery

August is an exciting time and a bit of a race in the vineyards! It's all about Veraison and a big scramble to protect the grapes! Bears and birds and turkeys and deer start smelling grapes after veraison happens. They are pretty good at concocting ways to get grapes before we do!

Veraison is a critical stage in the life cycle of wine grapes. It's the transition from growing to ripening. Before veraison, all wine grapes are small, hard, highly acidic and green-colored from the presence of chlorophyll. When veraison starts, the vine starts to transport its energy from roots into grapes. Red varietals begin gaining their red, blue or black pigment. White grape varietals turn from opaque solid green to transparent see through green. 

After veraison, grapes begin to dramatically increase in size as they accumulate sugars, glucose and fructose and start to develop aroma compounds. Acids continue to fall and sugars continue to rise until the grapes are perfectly in balance and ready to be harvested.

Vignole Veraison turning from opaque to transparent

Veraison serves as a clear indicator that harvest season is approaching. We carefully monitor this stage to determine the optimal time to pick the grapes. Harvesting too early or too late can result in wines that lack balance or have undesirable characteristics. 

Vintage 2024 has so far seen the biggest drought in 130 years here in Virginia. Winemakers love the dry weather for their crops but July weather got a little ridiculous even for winemakers. We dry farm all of our vineyard crops, meaning we never water the vineyards. Grape vines dig their roots deep into the earth to get their own water, which works well for vintners most of the time!

Within 70 days from veraison all of our grapes will be making you some magnificent vino!

August 1st — Happy 75th birthday Carl!

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Heatwaves and Top 10% of Things To Do in the World

Little Washington Winery ranked among the top 10% of things to do worldwide!

Each year, Tripadvisor recognizes travelers' favorite businesses around the world, based on reviews and ratings collected over 12 months. Little Washington Winery just scored a spot in the top 10% of things to do around the world! We have often gotten a Tripadvor award over the past 14 years, but this one is definitely different. Thanks to all who took the moment to go online and write a review about your experiences at Little Washington Winery.

July at Little Washington Vineyards

July and June have shown big heatwaves so far for the 2024 vintage in Virginia. As vintners everyone knows we root for dry hot growing seasons, but with several over 100 degree days, even to us winemakers this is getting a bit ridiculous!

Human hands are coming into play with the use of vine management techniques to counter less-than-ideal weather. We use grapevine leaves to regulate heat. If more sun is needed, more leaves are removed to give the grapes every opportunity to soak up the rays. If less sun is desired, the leaves will remain, shading the grapes as much as possible from the heat. Vine and fruit growth can be limited to improve fruit quality, or encouraged, to increase quantity. 

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June In The Vineyard @ Little Washington Winery

Vineyard vines have all flowered out and are growing like crazy now! Here in Virginia, the flowers that will become grapes have now bloomed and set as tiny grapes. June is major training time to get the vines tied up on the trellis to allow for optimum light for the grapes.

Japanese beetles arrive for work in June. Over the years we have kind of made a deal with the beetles. They love eating grape leaves but leave the baby clusters alone. We hate how the leaves look with holes chewed in them but … really, that’s what leaf pulling is all about! We thin the big top leaves off of the vines to get dappled light to the clusters. Our ongoing spray program is ready to be activated to fight pests and diseases if necessary, but here at Little Washington Winery we tend to our vineyards as tenderly and organically as possible.

In the winery June is time to make room for the upcoming vintage. This means bottling. We’re still bottling 2023 whites this month. We’re also blending & bottling the 2020 “George”. 2020 is tasting like a fantastic vintage!

Oh - We’re getting hayed - it’s beautiful out here - come play @ littlewashingtonwinery.com/events

May in the Vineyard

It’s MAY - Annnd - They’re off - vines are out of the gates and they’re racing like crazy toward the finish line! It’s like watching the Derby every day around here! May is the time to give the vines a little parental guidance and set the tone for producing a spectacular vintage of vino - so here we go!

May is Sucker Shoot Removal season! Shoots are annoying little buds and leaves that pop out of the vine in really awkward places - way down on the trunk, close to the ground, all along the underside of the cordons. They take up space and growing energy, but they won’t result in grape clusters (which is our goal), so they’ve got to go! We break off those little sucker buggers to redirect all the vines energy to grapes. This activity is all done by hand in our vineyards so that we retain human decision making control over each sucker. Shoot removal is primarily focused on removal from trunks and those growing in the obvious wrong direction on the underside of the fruiting cordon.

Please cross your fingers for us - it’s too late to tuck baby vines back into bed. We strategically select our vineyard sites based primarily on having mountains and frost troughs that protect them from a late Spring frost, but frost danger is at its height in May.

IN OTHER MAY NEWS - May is our annual celebration of LIME GREEN - our 55 acres of grape vines and peach, apple, pear orchards and fiddlehead ferns and persimmons and trees and hay fields and ginormous lawns are all back to a lovely lime green now! So exciting.

1. May 18th is Winestock - our groovy wine, beer, food, music celebration of Spring. Come.

2. Big Big News about the Wine Loves Chocolate shop! Technology has caught up with us! You are now free to Pick Your Own favorite chocolates and put them all in your chocolate box! The old adage “Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re gonna get” no longer applies. In the tasting room or online from all over America you can now fill your own box of chocolate and have it delivered right to your door!

3. Dirt Road Wine Academy Degree - Get your degree at your next wine ed class and start earning free classes and other amazing cool prizes!

4. Hotspot Hub where you can come and get some work done with high speed internet and cell service - and coffee, tea, sodas, water, snacks, lunchables, desks, charging cables, walking trails. mountains, walking trails, Zoomability, podcast gear, office equipment and porches. Some of our favorite local businesses were hatched at Little Washington Winery! We’re open Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday 11-5. Walk in. Find a spot. Work.

Bud Break in the vineyard … And, so it begins!

Welcome to the Little Washington Winery Blog where we uncork the journey of making wine … Grab a glass and let’s toast to the lighter side of libations!

Bud break is the most glorious (and scary) moment in the vineyard each spring as the grape vines wake up from their winter dormancy.

All winter long, grapevines stand lifeless and bare, then, just before Spring starts peeking around the corner, we get very antsy and do our best to convince them to stay in bed just a little bit longer. If frost gets them once they are out it’s a very bad thing! But, as the temperature rises and days lengthen, those baby vines are suddenly bursting with vitality & ready to grow!

Have you ever longed (like us) to get up close and personal with a grapevine? Do it! Watch the vineyards grow every time you come up the staircase to our entrance! That giant staircase is our monitor vineyard where we watch for what needs to happen next throughout the season to get these grapes turned into vino! You can see every stage of growing a vineyard right here on our staircase! Please don’t pluck or eat or try to take the pretty leaves until we say so! 

Ready or not - here we go!