True-believerism

This is an editorial pause. I was going to tell you about Stephane's visit last week but our jog through vintages and years will keep for a moment because the wine conversation this week in Virginia is important.

At Boxwood, we're absorbed in our mission - heads down and dug in. That is to say, we are energetic, pragmatic, dedicated, and most of all, fiercely genuine about our work at time to the exclusion of things swirling around us.

We talk about "local" and "terrior-driven" and "Virginia born" like we mean it, because we do, not because it was a corporate mantra foisted on our shoulders. In truth, there is nothing corporate about Boxwood, it is a family business - a Virginia family business. Our marketing was born from the mission,  from the TB (true-believerism) which infects us, and from the power of the movement under-foot: We are Virginia wine and we are proud of it. It was not the other way around: marketing custom built for the endeavor - no, no.

There is a fundamental purism here, the mission speaks definitively for itself, it is defined by clarity and does not need marketing spin. You see, in my line of work: It's what we call solid. But there are other terms and colloquialisms: Like legit. Like honest.

It is easy to be wholly absorbed by our own adventure. This week we were just excited to be entering wines in the newly conceived Governor's Cup competition and we were still just talking about wine and loving our wine and our colleagues and it was, like it usually is here, one glorious wine love-in. And then (although it was at first only as gentle as a pin drop in the Twitter media) this one fact became like a sonic boon followed by jet wash: Virginia wines are not required to be entirely from Virginia and of course, it is not required to identify where the grapes are from at all. I read that Tweet and the linked article and felt as though I were in a whole new marketing world. Because, wow, I didn't know that, never stopped for a moment to think about it, because I live the message like all of us here: Terroir.

This is not at all uncommon in wine, trust me on this. It is acceptable and even encouraged practice in some regions. But we've got a different thing going in Virginia than every other place. Marketing wise, because it was a little known and youthful region,  selling the world on Virginia wines was an uphill battle. I am not referring here to our good Thomas Jefferson, but to the wine-makers of the last thirty years in sum total. And the thing about Virginia is that we didn't care for the taste of not being taken seriously, we are proud of our beautiful state, and not one of these wineries is an also-ran in this endeavor. Not one. We mean to succeed, as much for no one keeping Virginia down as for saying we made the most beautiful wine in our magnificent Virginia. The pride is palpable: In the glass, in our speak, even in our wine writers. Nobody puts Virginia in the corner. Period.

And Virginians, buy Virginian, and you can take me at my word:  Get yourself a Virginian, put the Boxwood Cabernet Sauvignon blend bottle next to a Californian bottle.  Look me in the eyes through that monitor: When faced with a choice Virginians buy Virginia wine, I don't care who they are. You want loyalty to local products? You come meet the customers drinking flights and glasses at our tasting room and I promise you, no one will talk about being Redskins fans, they talk about what it is to be a Virginian.

I want to tell you how I know this: One day I poured a tasting for two wine bloggers and I gave them the bottles to take home and write their reviews from, and  they thanked me and then asked to purchase several additional bottles of wine, "we love these wines," she told me "we only buy Virginia." That is to say, they taste wines from all over the world, but they buy Virginian.

Lastly, we run a proverbial tight ship on Boxwood: Not because John Kent Cooke told us to, but because we would choose no other way individually. There is a lot to defend here: Our status as a premiere Virginia winery but more than that - fine wine, from Virginia, United States of America. Our grapes came from these sixteen acres - we are married to this Virginia land for better or worse and all that means with regard to doing it proud. Boxwood Winery is 100% estate fruit, estate bottled, and estate-willed-into-life.

Being the marketer on the place, after reading The Flavor Magazine piece, it seemed like a good time to swoon. Good thing they told me there were concerns about the origin of the grapes in Virginia bottles, because I was dug down in Middleburg, happily regaling media with the news of our amazing 2010 and 2011's and chatting on like Mrs. Mills pet goat about the 2011 Malbec Rose. Those were innocent days, before that piece. Different days, that old yesterday.

It seems like a good time to hang from the weathervane (virtually-speaking) and reinforce: This is 100% estate fruit. No fruit comes on, none leaves. We bottle it right here in our bottling room. Boxwood accepts it on the chin economically to make estate wines with accurate terroir representation.We're so focused on this one piece of land and the wine it makes but once in a while it bears lifting your gaze from Boxwood to issue some reassurance:  

We grow on 16 acres of rolling countryside in Middleburg, Virginia. There are five Bordeaux varietals here. Soon there will also be Syrah.

Every year the vines flourish: We are dry farmed and sustainable, we get what nature in Northern Virginia gives and it is good, plentiful, and delicious. We don't need anything more or different to make the best wine you will ever drink.

Everything about being here, and making wine here, is staggeringly amazing. Just look at this place. We are never finished trying to get all of this into a wine glass. 

That means we have to bring it all down the hill and into the Winery by hand, very gently. It is hand-picked and sorted because that preserves terroir in the glass, Virginia terrior which is as fine as any in the world.

And then our grapes - and only our grapes - come here to be made into wine under the care of two discerning masters of the wine-making craft with the intention of making a true and complete wine representation of this hillside.

And because the rest of the world and it's centuries old experience does matter to making and blending fine Virginia wines - we put them before arguably the world's foremost authority on Bordeaux-styled wines, Stephane Derenoncourt, and this terroir stands up. 

We received these awards alongside French, Italian, and Californian wines from revered chateau's. Legendary, some. Those awards were for our 100% Virginia estate wines and if you remember nothing else about Boxwood, I want you to hold on to this: Everything in that glass is from this hill right here in Middleburg, Virginia.  Everything.