I grew up in what is today labeled the Northern Virginia American Viticultural Area (AVA), a designation given to established wine regions based on the shared environment that contributes to the final taste of the wine or terroir. Yet these established AVAs and the plethora of Virginia wineries (over 300 at the beginning of 2020) are a relatively new phenomenon on the East Coast. Before most of the vineyards down the road from my childhood home were planted, the region was known as the edge of Washington, DC, and horse country, where cows outnumber people, and wine was not yet on the cultural radar. One Friday evening in the summer as a young teenager, I was left at home while my parents went to a dinner party I wasn't allowed to attend. Less than 30 minutes after my parents departed for the party, my father returned and quickly rummaged through the pantry for several bottles of wine before leaving again. The party had begun with a wine tasting of a bottle each of red and white wine from the two wineries in the county where I lived. After trying each wine and subsequently pouring it out on the grass, my father decided to go home and get a couple of bottles he knew were good from long-established California wineries. Suffice it to say, the local wines that evening were not “up to snuff,” as my parents would say, and could have easily been confused with “purple vinegar” or syrup.

Several years later I returned home from college for the summer and found a job at one of the local vineyards less than a mile from my home. The work was less than glamorous; most people who romanticize the life of winemakers as tasting wines overlooking a vineyard watching the sunset often miss that wine is an agricultural product, and thus you have to get your hands dirty. We worked outside in the vineyard maintaining the vines to ensure the budding grapes were able to receive the proper amount of sun, shade, and specific spray to ensure growth and prevent pests. We tended the vines Monday through Friday for the entire months of June, July, and most of August.