Winemaking and FAQ

• Whites and sweets tend to be best consumed young – with the exception of our Chardonnay and Roussanne which can age similarly to our reds.

• Reds tend to be optimal at 2 to 5 years after bottling, which equals 4 to 7 years after the Vintage Year.

• Tannat is our longest aging Red with aging potential from 10-15 years after Vintage Year.

Screw caps are used as a quality control practice, to minimize the bottle variation associated with corks.  Corks can induce cork taint, and ‘off-bottles’ as the wine aging lengthens.  Wines under screw caps evolve equally well to cork closed wine, still maturing by polymerization.  However screw capped wines require reduced sulfite levels, which results in a healthier wine.

The entire estate property is 75 acres, and was used in Apple Orchard production, until being abandoned to reforestation in the early 1900’s.  We purchased the property from Phoebe and Bob Harper, the original owners of Naked Mountain.  The property was entirely wooded at the time we purchased it.

We produce around 1,200 cases per year using our 8.5 acre estate vineyard and about 3 acres from our satellite vineyard, Seven Oaks. We do not have plans to be bigger so we can maintain the quality and philosophy.

• One Acre yields an approx. avg. 2 tons (unless winter or frost damaged)

• One ton produces 2 barrels = 50 cases = 600 bottles

• Thus One acre produces an average of 100 cases which = 4 barrels which = 1200 bottles

• We typically average 85% to 90% at best full yield per year – less if there is winter damage

• Virginia mountain soils are lower yields but higher quality

Sulfites are the only thing that ever touches our wines, and are used simply as an antioxidant for safely getting the wine to bottle.  Our sulfite levels are extremely low since we use tight sealed screw-caps and do not have to protect against a lifetime of oxygen ingress.  Our sulfite levels are generally at or below the organic standard. Our zero sulfite wines or NO sulfite added…there is always naturally occurring sulfite on the fruit.

Yes the wines are clean, just like organic wines; although we are in the process of organic certification, we do not yet carry and organic certification.  We have an achilles heel in the warm moist mid-atlantic.  There is a disease called black-rot that is VERY BAD in North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania.  It is not bad on cooler regions in New York, and isn’t of any real significance anywhere else in the world; so there really isn’t research done on it.  I have tracked all the people who have tried organic in the mid-atlantc, and while they all made a great start, once the fruit crops for a year or two, black-rot then causes 85% to 90% crop losses EVERY year once the inoculum is prevalent.  The up-side is this disease hits during bloom, being the last week of may through the first week of June.  At that time we have to use a conventional chemical.  But from then on, we can switch to a program that mirrors organics.  Most growers do not do this, but we take advantage of the 3 to 4 months after bloom until harvest to ensure we are harvesting clean fruit, that is both healthier for us to consume, and allows the viability of our native yeast fermentations…….

However, with more and more research being done with organic and biological protocols, there are more options to pursue organic even with vinifera (European) varietals. So Arterra has been trialing organic blocks for the last 2 years and in working toward full organic certification for their fruit to go hand in hand with clean winemaking practices.

Jason uses neutral oak, and specifically French Oak.  French is inherently milder, and older barrels have already lost their strong flavoring impact.  Oak flavors and tannins distract from (or dominate) the fruit flavors we have worked so diligently to cultivate in the vineyard.  Jason often considers heavily oaked wines to occur along with inferior quality fruit.

Competitions favor the wine that best matches conventional expectations.  Such as a dog show awards the dog that is in every way “common” for the breed, as opposed to the one dog with interesting but unique characteristics.  The wines that wine competitions and do well with critics are ‘MADE” for the first impression, meaning that first sip is IMPRESSIVE but usually the wines then fall apart in the glass or have astringency that accumulates to a point of being unbearable.  Competition wines are NOT DRY even if they are claimed to be, often with a subtle residual sugar to trigger the American physiological craving response to sugar.  And competition wines are often heavily oaked, and have significant juice bleeds-off’s to concentrate the wine, for an intense impact.  In a line with those, our wines are perceived as “different”, and generally in the American Market, different is harder to understand and concluded to be ‘wrong’.

This adventure is the convergence of life’s long path for the both of us.

Sandy trained as a painter, acquiring her B.A. from Maryland Institute College of Art, after a start at Carnegie Mellon.  And the worked as an Art Teacher and Art Curriculum Specialist – while earning her Master of Education.  Leaving the school system in 2009, she went on the sell her Vine and Wine themed art at Wine & Art Festivals for 5 years, until the need to settle into a permanent Gallery & Studio become the definitive next step.

Jason worked in Agriculture through his youth, and in a Garden Center during high school, going on the earn a B.S. and M.S on Horticulture at the University of Maryland.  He worked 2001 through 2005 as a commercial horticulturist in Loudoun County, VA, assisting businesses in start-up & problem solving, focusing on Vineyards.  He planted the Chateau O’Brien Vineyard in 2003, and began his career as a full time Winemaker and Grape grower in 2005.  The Seven Oaks Vineyard has been with Jason ever since.  The Arterra business plan was written in 2012, property purchased in 2014 with construction commencing immediately, and planting the vineyard & opening the tasting room in 2015.  (The first wines were the 2013 vintage, made under license at the Murray’s residential property, in preparation for opening in 2015).

Natural wine and clean wine are fermented with Native Yeast, and do not have any additives, with the exception of very low levels of sulfite at or below levels acceptable for organic wines.  Generally Natural wine is unfiltered, where-as clean wine is often filtered using benign media.