Virginia Wine Festival hosts 20,000

Wines & Vines, Jan, 1999 by Philip E. Hiaring

More than 20,000 souls braved the heat and humidity to attend last year's weekend-long Virginia Wine Festival, the 23rd, at The Plains, not far from Dulles Airport.

The heat was ugly, but the event was not as purveyors of ethnic food and crafts shared tent space with some 43 Virginia wineries who showed up to offer a taste. This year, stormy weather didn't blow down the tents and attendees weren't threatened by the dynamite electric storms common to the area.

This year, Wines & Vines received the perpetual Monteith Trophy for ongoing contributions to the advancement of the wine industry in the United States. I was on hand to receive the trophy and even drank a champagne toast from the elegant sterling silver 123-oz. trophy.

The trophy is "one of the earliest forms of elegant silversmithing and is reported to have been used in the service of wine for over 300 years of European and Colonial American history. The escalloped rim was a practical device to allow the diner to hang his or her wine glass by the base while the cup end cooled in water between dinner courses with their accompanying wines. A ceramic example of the Monteith was used by Thomas Jefferson and is on display in the dining room at Monticello. Smaller individual glass versions were used by George Washington at Mount Vernon and are also on display in the Mansion's dining room."

Dr. Tony K. Wolf of Virginia Polytechnic Institute received the ornate silver Wine Grape Productivity Tray and the Mount Vernon Inn received the Distinguished Restaurant Award for "outstanding wine and food promotion".

The Monteith Trophy is awarded to individuals as well as organizations. The first to receive the trophy, in 1980, was the late Dr. Konstantin Frank of New York's Finger Lakes fame. Other publications that have received the trophy, in addition to Wines & Vines, are Wine East and Wine Enthusiast.

It's not all fun and games and wine and food at the Virginia Wine Festival; there are some serious (and some not-so) seminars as well, with topics repeated on the second day.

One thing you couldn't help notice was the relatively high number of black persons attending the festival. Proximity to Washington, D.C. no doubt helped, but this attendance, not particularly noticed elsewhere, probably is an indication of upward mobility/enhanced income and the desire to enjoy the "good" life via wine and food.

After the trophies/awards were presented, Gordon Murchie of the Vinifera Wine Growers Association, led off and offered a brief history of wine in colonial Virginia. To be sure, the wines I tasted were quite a bit different - as in better - than those tasted back in the days when I traveled the wine routes with the late Leon D. Adams, Lucie Morton and Alan Kinne. And they had come a long way since my last Navy tour at the Pentagon in the 1980s.

Murchie, retired from the U.S. Information Agency and executive director of the Licensed Beverage Information Council, noted in Jefferson's day grapes were so highly-regarded it was illegal to steal grapes from vineyards. Offering an update, he said the state now has more than 50 wineries and those enterprises, directly and indirectly, employ some 600,000 people.

Bill Baker, or Thomas Jefferson, talked of winegrowing in 1700s Virginia and responded to questions/comments from the audience. He said wine was healthier than most water at the time and better for a person than spirits. He admitted frosts made him abandon his winegrowing efforts in 1758 and that growing tobacco was more profitable than growing grapes.

Dr. Roy Williams, of Old Dominion University's Department of Chemistry, said that the wine and health issue is still touchy, at least in some circles. He was on route to France for a wine and health conference. He said "Wine is different - actually it's very different - than other alcoholic beverages". He noted some of the elements in wine also are found in beer and, even, bourbon.

He said results from a Dutch cardiology study showed wine was more beneficial than spirits and that seeds are important. He said companies in France and Canada are grinding up seeds to sell as pills in health food and other stores. He predicted resveratrol soon would be available in health stores as well.

Dr. Williams said that the use of soy products helps Japanese fight cancer. In wine terms, he said three to four glasses of wine appear to be optimal (drink to that!).

Dr. Williams and his students have studied wine and health since 1989, but he urged the audience not to think of wine as medicine.

Steve Brown, sommelier and master chef from Maryland, conducted a lively session on wine buying, tasting and pairing with food. He said, health issues aside, enjoyment was the only reason to drink wine. His amusing approach skewered a few icons, such as Riedel glassware, which he termed "ridiculous" and overly priced.

He hammered cork-sniffers as well, suggesting diners sniff the wine, not the cork.

As for a judging system, Brown said he uses the American Wine Society's 20-point scale, a scale that is either based on or a modification of the Davis 20-point scale, which many think is outdated.