Winery- Maison Beliveau

On Saturday, April 14th, 2012, my girl friend and myself went to Maison Beliveau which has recently just bottled its first wine on the day I visited. This was the third winery I had visited and what an experience I had. At this winery I was able to see the beginning stages of what it takes to become a winery and I was able to see the bottling process first hand.

Maison Beliveau entrance

Maison Beliveau is located off of Mt. Tabor road in Blacksburg, Virginia. This will be the first winery home to Blacksburg so this is a pretty monumental step. This winery/bed and breakfast is located in a beautiful 165 acre property. All the grapes being used for the wines are being grown on this land, and the weather poses a problem. Since it is located at a higher elevation, it requires extreme attention to harvest these grapes.

Vines and Hills!!!

I was so fortunate to take a tour of the fields where the vines are. I was told just recently with the cold snap that occurred, many employees had to spend the night with the grapes to water them every hour through the night. This was done so that the grapes could continuously have a new layer of ice, which you wouldn't think would be helpful, but it actually protects the grape. At the moment Maison Beliveau is producing six different wines. 

Bottling Machine!

After the tour of the vines, I was able to go behind the scenes and see how the wines are bottled first hand. The first stop was the bottling machine which takes the bottle that already has wine in it, and compresses a cork into it. Then using a heat gun, which is basically an oversized hairdryer, the seal goes over the top. This prevents most of the oxygen from getting into the wine but at the same time allows just a tiny bit so that the wine oxidizes over a short period of time. 

Wine Containers

Before the wine goes into the bottle, the wine is stored in these large plastic containers. At this point in the process, the main cause for concern to the wine is oxygen. So to prevent the wine being poured in the bottle with oxygen, nitrogen is pumped into the wine. What happens is, a hose that is connected to a nitrogen contained, is placed into the wine container. The nitrogen is then able to push the oxygen out of the container. Since the wine does not react with nitrogen, it is the perfect gas to pair with the storage of wine.

Vine where the grapes grow

At the end of the tour, since Maison Beliveau had just bottled their first batch of wines we were lucky enough to be able to have one wine tasting. The wine we were able to be so fortunate to try was called Destiny. Destiny is a red wine, that on the nose had a very berry, floral aroma. On the palate this wine was pretty tasty. I detected hints of raspberry, cherry, along with a very smooth finish. I really enjoyed this wine and I believe in the future this winery will be very popular. The most interesting thing I found about this winery is that all the wines were labeled with a quote about the name. The owner told me that they did this so as you were sipping and enjoying the wine, these quotes would be thought provoking and hopefully have people start new conversations. I wish the best of luck to Maison Beliveau winery and I thoroughly enjoyed the time I spent there learning about the bottling process and touring their vines!