Winery Visit- Chateau Morrisette

The sign welcoming us to Chateau Morrisette!

Winery: Chateau Morrisette

Location: Floyd, Virginia

Date Opened: 1978

This large building houses the tasting room, a store, upstairs private room, and all wine production facilities.

The first thing I noticed about Chateau Morrisette is how much they love dogs! From their website, to their accessories in the store, to the cute puppies walking around to property, to the dogs and paws adorning the wine glasses. These people love dogs! This love stems from back in the 1970's when Dave Morrisette went to college with the family's dog Hans. When Dave returned to the winery, Hans followed him through planting, growing, and harvesting. It didn't take much time for Hans to become a figure in Chateau Morrisette. To honor Hans, the winery put together Black Dog, which is a blend of Chambourcin, Cabernet, Merlot, and Petit Verdot. It was so good, I purchased a bottle to take home.

The winery itself was stunning. Situated about an hour away from Blacksburg in Floyd county, two buildings sit a top a mountain overlooking the beautiful valley. One building is a smaller older building that houses the restaurant. The other, a large chateau, houses the winery with tasting rooms. Walking in, a large chandelier welcomes you to the wooden lodge. Retired wine barrels provide shelving for the winery's merchandiser including dog collars, dog leashes, wine, wine bottle openers, and other wine related decor. 

This picture does no justice, but the winery overlooks a beautiful valley.

Production:
This winery itself doesn't grow many grapes of its own. It grows mostly native varieties such as concord and Niagara. They do their best though to make all of their wines with Virginia grown grapes. The tour guide said that they can't grown most varieties because of the high elevation. When grapes are brought in in crates, they are crushed outside in a machine and then brought inside where they ferment in steel vats. As expected, white wines are separated immediately from skins and stems while red wines are fermented with skins and stems. They are then aged in steel or oak barrels. Oak barrels are made from French or American oak. Those aged for longer periods are put in the angel room at 55`. It's called the angel room because a small amount of wine evaporated during the aging process for the "angels." Additional details of production are included below.

Wine is filtered after fermentation to remove settlement.

Red wine is fermented in the tanks to the right with larger doors to allow for the removal of skins and stems while white wines are fermented on the left side with the smaller doors.

One of their oak barrels. Each barrel has indicates the type of wine, the year, and has some reference to dogs.

Wines are bottled and labeled on site using this machine. The label portion is in repair so the process has been slowed down so that labeling can be done by hand. 

 

 

 

 

 

Wines are either sold at the winery or boxed and prepared for shipment.

Tasting:
1) Vin Gris: tart cherry and peachy. Dry with a clean pear finish. Crisp and quite refreshing!
2) 2015 Viognier: Acidic from citrusy fruit including lemon. Some apricot underneath. Clean tasting with an orangey aftertaste.
3) 2014 Cabernet Franc: Really good! First wine made by the family in 1976. Jammy and smoky notes with some black berry fruit and black cherry. Some pepper and tannin but nothing too overbearing.
4) 2013 Cabernet Sauvignon: I got some earthy and herby smells and perhaps a taste of beets. Some sort of fragrant root vegetables really come through. Smoky licorice, black burrent, with a berry finish. Very layered wine!
5) The Black Dog: My favorite of all the wines I tasted! Blend of Chambourcin, Cabernet, and Merlot. Smelled of baking spices and particularly nutmeg. Some residual sugar enhances the berry flavors and underlying fruit.
6) Our Dog Blue: A blend of Riesling, Traminette, and Vidal Blanc. Tasted apricots and lots of melon. Particularly cantaloupe and honeydew. Peachy and refreshing. Started with firm acidity but finished with a nice fruity pallet.
7) Sweet Mountain Laurel: Tasted like grape juice with an added kick! Grape juice taste faded to firm acidity to an apricot taste. Tropic fruits stayed on the pallet at the end.
8) Red Mountain Laurel: Tasted like welch's grape juice with some tart cherry added in. Crisp but very sweet. This wine and the Sweet Mountain Laurel were the first sweet wines made by the winery in 1978 and are made with native grapes.
9) Farmhouse Sangria: This fun merlot/orange juice/cherry/lime juice blend lit up the taste buds. It was truly unique and tasted like a traditional red sangria with some smoke and orange fading to a strong flavor of lime.
10) Sweet Mountain Apple: Tasted like cough syrup but also like an overly sweet and thick hard cider. The granny smith apples used in production were evident.

My friends and I after visiting Chateau Morrisette