North Gate Vineyard

One of the nice things about a relatively small wine community like Loudoun County is that, for the most part, the wineries all look out for each other. The winery owners meet regularly, share ideas and help each other out. If you talk to just about any winemaker in Loudoun they'll have a story about how they've been advised by one of the other winemakers on any number of topics.

North Gate vineyard is no exception. I first heard about North Gate a year ago at Fabbioli and then again at Notaviva. Both tasting rooms carry a subset of the North Gate wines (Fabbioli has the Viognier and Notaviva the Chardonnay).

Unfortunately, North Gate does not have a tasting room yet, so while I enjoyed their wines, I was not able to get out and do a tasting. Fortunately, Mark and Vicki were kind enough to open their house during the Farm Tour this past weekend, so I got chance to see their operation and try some of the wines I haven't had a chance to try yet.

Visiting a winery during harvest is always interesting. It gives you a true sense of how the winery operates. As you can see from the pictures, they were very busy, but Mark still took the time to chat with me about the vineyard, answer my questions and show me around. Wile the sorting, fermenting and aging spaces were small they were clean and obviously well maintained and the white board with all the notes about the harvest demonstrates the amount of thought they put in to their harvest.

The wines were all good, I especially liked the Cabernet Franc. I was disappointed that I didn't get to try the Petit Verdot, maybe next time.

North Gate has a booth at several of the local Farmer's Markets, feel free to check them out there.