Sunroom balances artistry and agriculture
WORDS & PHOTOS | BJ POSS
The summer swelter has let up by early September, but its ashes linger in the form of a foggy blanket tucked in the nooks and crannies of an increasingly sparse Greenwood, VA vineyard. Day by day, hand by hand, the vineyard at Septenary Winery is sheared of its ripe clusters — harvest is in full swing. Through the nulls, winemaker Corry Craighill kicks her damp-toed Blundstones towards an open gate leading to the winery. With her Australian Shepherd by her side, she bobs a tea bag of English breakfast in a ceramic mug.
One hundred and some miles north, Nate Walsh of Walsh Family Wines is up to his elbows in the heart of a fermenting vat of Cabernet Franc. He pushes down the whole grapes that float to the surface overnight. This is the morning punch down, a red wine technique of mixing the fermentation cap with the juice to extract color, tannin, and flavor. With an active fermentation bubbling around his arms, he assesses if the aromatic profile is maturing to notes of dark cherry and worn leather or if it’s being stewed to bruised raspberry or potpourri.
Between Septenary and Walsh Family sits Mt. Airy Vineyard, from which, in 2023, Craighill and Walsh received a ton each of Grüner Veltliner from the same vineyard block on the same day — nestled with all the same flowerings and faults. In their respective cellars, Craighill and Walsh create two starkly different wines dripping with innovation to enjoy side by side: Sunroom.
Seeds & Stems
Sunroom explores the discussion around experimental winemaking practices with obscure varietals. The purpose is to alter the fruit, not in an additive way but in a technique-driven way.
Think of it as Top Chef: Vines & Wines edition. Both winemakers are given the same ingredients — grapes and time — and are tasked with creating a wine to stand not just next to but alongside their counterparts. Their only parameters are that their fermentation must derive from natively present yeast, and that there is no addition of sulfur (an industry standard preservative and protector against bacteria)and no enrichments from a box.
Over the project’s first two years, the winemakers had their hands in Malvasia for 2021 and 2022. In both years, Walsh created a partial skin-contact Petillant Naturel, aka Pét-Nat. This bright, sparkling bottle leans on the “quick and dirty” traditional method of bottling before primary (alcoholic) fermentation is complete, typically within a week of pressing, which allows fermentation to finish in the bottle, giving Pet-Nat its natural sparkle.
Craighill had been experimenting with carbonic maceration over Sunroom’s first two vintages. Carbonic maceration, a technique more prevalent in red wines, uses intracellular fermentation. Instead of pressing the grapes, they are kept entirely intact, not to be punched down or pumped over; the technique relies on the berries fermenting from the inside out. Instead of soupy fermentation and daily punch-downs, which break down the skins to extract tannins and flavors, carbonic creates a bright wine that heavily leans into the ripe, fruit-dominant profile.
“Corry and I are both winemaking nerds.” Walsh offers, “Our idea of fun is to call each other and get feedback on weird winemaking ideas. It’s a blast.”
This year, Walsh whole-cluster pressed 90% of the Grüner Veltliner upon arrival, saving the other 10% stems, seeds, and all to add to the batch — creating a semi-carbonic Grüner Veltliner. This culminated in a fruit-forward, easy-drinker that jumps off the palate. The semi-carbonic touch comes through in notes of soft honeydew and linear acidity.
Down the valley, Craighill started her processing day by chewing on a handful of stems from her bins of Grüner Veltliner — a technique she recalled from her former winemaker, who would perform this ritual with every lot to determine how much would be pressed whole cluster.
Underripe, astringent stems coil your taste buds to a pucker, drawing little to no inclusion in the batch. Meanwhile, mature stems lend themselves to a more savory bite, suggesting their addition would serve as a backbone for the wine to lean on as it evolves with age, which would earn a high whole cluster rate.
Craighill landed on pressing 10% of the fruit destemmed and the other 90% of the whole cluster. She then dried the stems of the 10% and seeped them back into the fermenting tank to retain tannic structure. “I’ve seen people add back the green stems,” Craighil explains. “But I was worried it would bring vegetal notes I wasn’t looking for, along with some unrefined tannin.”
Walsh and Craighill’s artisanal approach of keeping the wines slim of commercial additives gives the wines’ natural characteristics a spot to shine. “You can buy tannins all day long from different parts of the grape,” Craighill describes, a common additive to bring body and mouthfeel. “But I wanted it to be more of an authentic way to add structure.” Craighill’s 2023 Sunroom is a layered palette of honeysuckle, butterscotch, and a zest of tangerine. A nudge of grippy tannin grounds a slightly more viscous mouthfeel.
A Touch of Terroir
“While winemaking in a general sense has existed for millennia, Virginia wine is very young. Viticultural and cellar techniques are very specific to site and climate, so it’s important to explore styles that are ultimately the most appropriate for Virginia,” Walsh says. “We are still working out the proper grapes to grow, let alone the proper farming and winemaking techniques. All good winemakers are constantly striving to improve and discover something new.”
While it is true that thought-provoking wine is often traced back to the overly-present prints of winery-laden boots through vineyard rows, a bottle is much more than ripe fruit, skin contact, and timely ferments. Sunroom shines as a glass, or two, teeming with the connection between vines and culture.
Sunroom is sold exclusively as a two-pack in the Septenary and Walsh Family tasting rooms. Keep a lookout in May 2025 for the release of the 2024 vintage.
BJ Poss is a writer and winemaker based out of Crozet, VA. Having grown up on Maryland’s Chesapeake Bay, he strives to show how swell our home waters can be when we take the time to look. Find more of BJ’s work on conservation, artisans making local change, and anything that can be shared around a dinner table at bjposs.com.
This article first appeared in our 2024 Fall Issue “Under the Canopy”
