Route 9 Barrel Tasting: 8 Chains North

By popular demand, I’m not following the chronological order of my recent visits during the Route 9 Barrel tasting event hosted in Loudon Country Virginia. Instead, I’ll be sharing our experience at 8 Chains North Winery first. This was our second stop on our tour of the day. In our group was my wife and two of her girlfriends. My wife and I were the only ones actually doing the barrel tasting on that day. Her girlfriends had never been to any of the Loudon County wineries so while we were enjoying tasting future releases, they were soaking up the current vintage releases.

We arrived to find cars parked on both sides of the small parking lot at the front of 8 Chains. Not surprising, they had two tasting bars up and running and there was a good crowd at each.

After checking with the Ben’s Fiancée behind the main tasting bar, we found out Ben had a group in the back and that we had enough time to do a regular tasting with our friends before the next barrel tasting would start.

Well, I guess she twisted our arm’s into it, but today’s run down consisted of their 2009 Sauvignon Blanc done in the fume style which for those your who don’t know means fermented on the leafs. Predictably I noticed a green flower smell on the nose, and had very green flavor. I thought it was a bit cold and that was hurting its flavor as I didn’t find it appealing at all. In past visits I had like this wine much better. From there we moved on to the 2010 Loco Vino. A semi-dry blend of Traminette and Vidal Blanc, this wine has a .05% of residual sugar. That is slightly less than the previous year’s vintage which allowed more of the spiciness of the Traminette comes through on the palette. This a popular seller in the summer and good patio wine year round. From there we moved on to the 2008 Merlot. This had a very delicious bouquet of red fruit and smoky essence. Although it tasted only o.k. the nose was a sign that this could get better as it gets another year of two in the bottle. After the merlot we moved on to a wine that is from another winery that Ben is the vineyard manager for in Loundon County, Otium Cellars. This was the 2009 vintage of their Dornfelder. Please feel free to follow this link, to find out all you care about the Dornfelder grape. We all agreed this was a unique wine for the Virginia region, and great day-to-day drinking wine that can be paired with food but doesn’t require it. From there we moved on to the 2009 Furnace Mountain Red. Unfortunately it was at that point that it was time to go back to the cellar and start our cellar tasting so after quickly downing the sample without enjoying it, we were off to the cellar.

For those of you who have never done a cellar tasting, what you taste out of the barrel is usually not what you’ll taste when it has been bottled. Being young the tannins and acidity levels usually haven’t had time to balance out so one or the other is usually very much present. However, what you do get is a chance to catch aromas and tastes you never get in the finished product as they ousted through the continued fermentation and aging product. The real value of these cellar tastings, at least for me, is the time you get to spend with the wine maker. I have done one other barrel tasting with Ben and knew what an engaging and open person he is. He’ll give you great answers to any questions and won’t hold anything back about the wine making process, wine industry, grape growing, and of course his personal expertise, vineyard management.

After greeting us and taking us back into his barrel room and production facility, Ben began our barrel tasting with his '11 Sauvignon Blanc. He explained how this would be the last year in which he does not use grapes that he personally manages as the basis for his wine. The vineyard he has planted behind his tasting room will be ready for their first harvest next year, although he will be keeping the yields lower than the final production because it will be their first vintage. He currently gets his grapes from Delfosse Vineyards south of Charlottesville, VA. The wine displayed the citrus characteristics you would expect although was still quite acidic. As mention earlier, he does in the fume style by fermenting them on the leaves which makes it very different the New Zealand style Sav Blancs that have gained much popularity in recent years in the U.S.

From there we moved on to a new wine that will be released by 8 Chains, it will be single varietal Chardonnay. An interesting story upon how he came upon getting chardonnay to make this varietal out of, but I’ll save that for when he does his release. For me, there were hints of fruit and vanilla on the nose, displaying a little heavier pallet with fruit and oak ever prevalent. It was just about as much oak as I like for an oaked Chardonnay and commented as much. Ben said he was a little concerned about that also as it will continue to age until May. While finishing our taste of chardonnay Ben answered questions on crop damage due to stink bugs and other nasty bug critters that rob what would otherwise be a great glass of wine for you. The key take away from that discussion was that through trial and error Ben learned that stink bugs are not alcohol soluble so as long as you are diligent of taking them out of your vats and barrels they don’t harm the taste of the wine as other insects can.

After Chardonnay, it was time to move back over into the barrel room and start in the two reds Ben was prepared to let us sample. The first red was the '10 Merlot which has been almost a year in barrel already and only has a couple more months before being ready to bottle. My first wiff of this wine came with a smell of toasted marshmallow with cherry fruit hints. Salted caramel was another popular smell from the group along with other toasted marshmallows. Ben took a sample and after giving it a swirl, agreed that was in the nose. It is strange that caramelized sugars would appear on the nose like that, but I guess that could be a byproduct of the warm fermentation process. This was a delicious wine in almost perfect balance of fruit, weight, and tannin. It was ready for bottling right now in my opinion. To go with this sample, our group asked questions on corks, natural vs synthetic, screw tops and how they will change the wine making processes, and a little on the use of glass corks. It was very insightful on how what type corks you will use needs to be thought about at the very beginning of the wine making process to ensure you get the consistent balance wine you are looking for in the bottle.

Next up was the 2010 Petite Verdot. PV is one of our personal favorite varietals, and a common wine tasted on the Route 9 Barrel tasting. Ben’s was very good, full bodied and left us excited for its release later this year. This initiated a conversation of Viognier being selected as the official wine of Virginia. Although Ben was not against the selection due to the great climate Virginia has for growing Viognier, but Ben commented on how he thought single varietal Petite Verdots would become more common across wineries throughout Virginia.

From there Ben was going to allow us to taste the 2011 Petite Verdot so we could compare what year of aging will do for a wine. Since our conversation had went toward emerging wines in Virginia he instead decided to share his Malbec with us as he believed Virginia was well suited to make some outstanding Malbec wines. In time Virginia might gain some notoriety for the Malbec wines produced here. His Malbec was silky smooth and delicious. It made us talk about becoming wine club members as Ben said this will only be released to his wine club members. Hopefully, if their feedback is positive it will one day be a staple in Ben’s tasting room.

That was the end of the barrel tasting, but as a gracious host Ben continued to talk to the group for about another 10 minutes. It was really enjoyable to talk to someone who is so passionate about not only wine production, but vineyard management, and the local wine industry as a whole. I predict more good things will come from 8 Chains over the course of the next few years.