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August 2018 WINES&VINES 73 WINE EAST WINEMAKING WATERLOO CONTAINER Experience Service Expertise OTHER GUYS Don't be Penny Wise and Pound Foolish Choosing a packaging provider can be one of the most important decisions you make when planning and branding your product. Be sure to look past the pennies to the overall value you are getting with your packaging purchases. Look for real people with real experience. Look for quality and availability. Look to Waterloo Container. 888-539-3922 • waterloocontainer.com Weighing Your Packaging Options? The modern era of Virginia wines began in the 1980s. Many of the white wines were quite good, but red wines were marked by underripe characteristics and very high levels of methoxypyrazines. During the 1990s, we learned how to mitigate greenness with aggressive canopy management and clever winemaking. After the turn of the century, progressive producers began focusing on site and variety relationships to take their wines to the next level. Virginia wine growers have found that white wine varieties are very adaptable to a diversity of soils. However, the Bordeaux varieties are very picky about where they grow, and their preferences are reflected in wine quality. Virginia receives an average of 3 to 4 inches of monthly rainfall. Precipitation can't be controlled, but soils can influence how much of that water is available to the vines. Virginia often experiences summer- time precipitation during the critical period of berry and vegetative growth. This is problematic if the soil absorbs and holds this moisture, making it readily available to the vine. Without some level of hydric stress, vines will continue their shoot and lateral growth well past ve- raison. This abundance of vegetative growth delays maturity and con- tributes to green, vegetative characteristics in the wines. This is why an understanding of the relationship of soils and slopes to specific grape variety preferences can take our wines to the next level. To dig deeper, a group of Virginia winegrowers representing three diverse vineyard sites met to discuss individual experiences with grow- ing four varieties: Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot. Included in the discussion were Luca Paschina, winemaker and general manager, Fernando Franco, viticulturist, and Daniele Tessaro, associate winemaker, at Barboursville Vineyards in Barboursville, Va.; Rutger de Vink, owner, and Joshua Grainer, winemaker, at RdV Vineyards in Delaplane, Va.; and Jonathan Weber, winemaker, and Jim Law, wine grower, at Linden Vineyards in Linden, Va. PHOTO COURTESY OF BARBOURSVILLE VINEYARDS Barboursville Vineyards' viticulturist, Fernando Franco (top), in a soil pit at the new vineyard site on Goodlow Mountain with winegrower colleagues from Casa Vinicola Zonin, Barboursville's Italian parent company.