‘To qualify as a great wine region, Virginia needs roots and ageability’
LAST OCTOBER, THE Michelin Guide added Washington DC as the fourth American city to earn its own little red book. It has taken decades, but the DC food scene has evolved to offer world-class restaurants. And but a cork’s throw away, whether by coincidence or conspiracy, Virginia wine is evolving in lock-step with Capitol region cuisine as serious and varied stuff worth exploring.
It’s one thing to be the new kid on the block, but to join the pantheon of great wine regions, Virginia needs more than ratings and proficiency. It needs roots and ageability. When I first profiled the region for Decanter in 2013, we billed Virginia as ‘America’s Old World’, praising its 213 wineries for finesse, moderate alcohol and food-friendliness. Four years later, the count is nearly 270, and more and more labels are showing up in the UK and abroad. That’s good news if you want to drink a bottle tonight, but are these Virginia imports also worthy of cellaring?
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