Virginia's SA Wine & Food Festival at Grayhaven Winery

Grayhaven Winery will be holding their fourth annual South African Wine and Food Festival this weekend over three days Friday 11 thru Sunday 13 July.

As well as pouring their own estate grown Pinotage, they'll have a selection of South African wines including Wildekrans 2007 Pinotage which was chosen as wine of the week in the current issue of Richmond Times-Despatch.

Grayhaven Winery is in central Virginia midway between Richmond and Charlottesville.

Visit the special Festival web-site for full details - http://www.southafricanfoodfest.com/

The Pinotage Club visited Grayhaven in September 2008 -- see our report and videos here

Everybody Loves Grayhaven's Virginia Pinotage

I have been travelling in Virginia, USA visiting three wineries that make Pinotage wines. In the video above I ask Deon Abrams, who is Grayhaven Winery's winemaker and co-owner, about his Pinotage. Deon takes grapes from an established nearby vineyard while he grows and propagates enough of his own Pinotage. As we hear, he can't meet demand and last year needed to augment his Virginia grapes with some brought from California. Deon says that these grapes come in a refrigerated truck in a a few days.

In the video below we look at his own young Pinotage vines in the adjoining vineyard.

Deon was busy in the middle of the vintage. There was a trailer full of sweet Chambourcin grapes waiting his attention in the winery behind the tasting counter, and we greatly appreciate him taking time out to show us around his winery and vineyards.

Deon is South African by birth. He married Max Peple whose parents had bought this farm as a retirement hobby. When the farm got too much for them Max and Deon gave up their high-flying jobs in New York City to take over running the winery.

For some years Grahaven has been running a hugely succesful South Africa Festival at the farm. This year more than 4000 people, including the South African Ambassador, came to taste South African food and wines. Deon imports South African necessities such as Mrs Balls Chutney for the festival and for sale in the tasting room.

Worth a visit -- the winery is about 30 minutes from Charlottesville.

Visiting Grayhaven

Grayhaven Winery is one of three wineries in the state of Virginia, USA growing and making Pinotage.


Virginia Vine Spot's Dezel Quillen -- our man in Virginia -- dropped in on Grayhaven and reports:-




Grayhaven Winery

On a warm and sunny spring day I left the hustle and bustle of the fast-paced city to visit Grayhaven Winery. Grayhaven is a part of the Heart of Virginia Wine Trail and is located on a relaxing and rural 50 acre farm in the small town of Gum Springs, VA. Grayhaven is a small family-run operation that is owned by Charles and Lyn Peple, who began growing and selling wine grapes in 1979. Sixteen years later they built a tasting room and started making and selling their estate bottled wines to the general public. Today, daily operations are assumed by daughter, Max Peple, and husband, Deon Abrams. After turning into the winery on a single lane gravel road, I was warmly greeted by the tail-wagging winery dog Mona. Mona led me into the tasting room where Deon invited me to the tasting bar to sample their wines.

Deon Abrams - Grayhaven Winemaker

While chatting with Deon and tasting Grayhaven’s full array of wines, I learned that Deon was Grayhaven’s chief winemaker and is from South Africa, where he made wine before settling here in the Old Dominion. Although Deon is the chief winemaker, he explained to me that winemaking at Grayhaven is a true family affair, stating that, “a lot of our winemaking takes place at the dinner table where we'll try the new vintages and make group decisions as to how to proceed.” As my eyes perused the rustic, yet charm-filled tasting room, Deon’s South African influence is noted in the gift shop where a number of unique artisan crafts and food selections are imported from South Africa. The true tell-tale is Grayhaven’s flagship wine; no, not Cabernet Franc, Norton or Viognier, but Pinotage - a grape variety developed in 1925 at Stellenbosch University in South Africa from crossing Pinot Noir with Cinsaut..


Grayhaven Winery specializes in small lots of hand-crafted wines made from vinifera, French-American hybrids, and other unique grape varieties. Varietal wines offered - such as Seyval Blanc, a rare Rkatsiteli, Touriga, Cabernet Franc, and Chambourcin are leaner wines with subtle flavoring and good balance. These easy drinking wines make for nice sippers or accompaniments to a number of food dishes since the flavors are not over- powering, but complimentary. The exception to these leaner bodied wines would be the Pinotage, which is the winery’s most popular wine. Deon tells me that their Pinotage ripens beautifully with high brix levels and the results are much different than what one would expect from typical South African examples. Grayhaven's Pinotage is bigger and more fruit forward, lacking the smokiness and earthiness found in some South African examples. Although there is no distinct Virginia Pinotage style, it is interesting to see what this grape variety can do in Virginia soil.

With wine, cheese, and warm French baguette in hand, I left the tasting room and found comfort sitting by a nearby pond. I enjoyed my visit to visit Grayhaven Winery on this beautiful spring day and look forward to many happy returns. If you are ever in the area, I recommend visiting the winery and experiencing “a hip slice of country life” for yourself.

Many thanks to Dezel.

Dezel Quillen is Founder, Photographer & Wine Writer – Virginia Vine Spot, and Wine Column Contributor to VA Wine Lover Newsletter.

Above photographs and text are (c) Copyright 2008 Dezel Quillen

At 16%abv it's technically a dessert wine

Jack Berninger writing in the Richmond Times-Despatch (15/08/2007) asked four Virginia winemakers about their favourite wines. At Grayhaven Winery he met Chuck Peple the owner-winemaker "in this family-run business that has been making wine for 12 years."

Chuck chose his 2005 Pinotage ($30)


"Grayhaven's Pinotage is a spicy, peppery, full-bodied red with strong cherry notes balanced by the earthy American and French oak barrels used to age this 2005 vintage. The current Pinotage release is technically a dessert wine, not sweet, but boasts a hearty 16 percent alcohol, making it a great sipping wine or after-dinner treat."

Virginia's Grayhaven releases Pinotage

Grayhaven Winery, in Central Virginia, USA, is about to release their first varietal Pinotage, but it hasn’t been easy, as Max Peple-Abrams told me.

"Our first Pinotage planting was in 2000," she says. " We lost every single plant - ouch. We scrambled and found another 30 vines and they all survived. We graft our own now and haven't had any problems....save for Japanese beetles and birds and drought and monsoons and all the lovely things mother nature throws our way in the great state of Virginia .... one can certainly understand why Thomas Jefferson didn't quit his day job!

We have less than 1/3 acre of Pinotage vines here and have to supplement with Pinotage grapes grown in California. We graft off our existing vines every year to increase our production - it's slow going. To meet the current demand for our Pinotage, we are looking to eventually have about 2000 vines. We thin our crops pretty well so the quality is high but our yield is less than 1/2 of what a large commercial vineyard would get from the same vine count.

Max's parents Charles and Lyn Peple founded Grayhaven in 1978, and Max fell in love with Pinotage after travelling in South Africa. She says “my husband is a native South African who grew up in Johannesburg & Cape Town. I spent several years trying to locate Pinotage nursery stock US when I found a few hundred in New York state. I think it's amusing that so many SA wineries are trying to distance themselves from Pinotage just when the rest of the world is getting a taste for it .... crazy people. Anyway, we hope you'll make it to Virginia some day and stop by for a visit. In addition to our 100% Pinotage, we'll be releasing an amazing 50/50 blend this year of Pinotage and Touriga.”

Grayhaven Winery’s location and details are on their website at www.grayhavenwinery.com

I’ve really enjoyed my times in Virginia and am looking forward to returning and tasting Virginia Pinotage – see also here