Visiting Chateau Morrisette

A week ago Saturday April 18th, I visited Chateau Morrisette. I apologize for not getting around to blogging it earlier, I have had so many things going on this week that it was just too hectic but here it goes.

I was too stupid to take pictures of the gorgeous scenery that leads to this winery but I can tell you that even without the amazing wine and atmosphere at this winery, the drive alone made the trip entirely worth it. It is seated in Floyed County and is about an hour away from Virginia Tech so if you are interested in going, you need to be dedicated to the drive. I digress.

I showed up to the winery and was blown away by how old and beautiful it looked, it was incredibly reminiscent of a castle. I went inside and purchased my tasting ticket and tried to find out where the tour began.

The winery was started in 1978 by David Morrisette and his family. They had a black dog who lived with them and lived in the cellar where they kept the barrels. Eventually they noticed that the dog would sleep a lot and felt very sick, they grew worried about the dog and feared that he was getting sick. As it turned out one of the barrels was leaking and the dog was getting incredibly drunk. Eventually when the dog passed away they renamed the wine that he had been drinking from "The Trilogy" to "The Black Dog", this name changed caused a 200% sales increase. A similar thing happened with their next dog, whom had blue eyes, they named their Riesling after him when he passed away; "Our Dog Blue" and Riesling sales increased 600%.

Chateau Morrisette is one of the largest salvage timber framed buildings in the world. A large majority of its timber is taken from the St Marie River and dates back to the 1300's. It is all Douglas Fir.

All of the fermenting is done on site in these large containers and they have special compartments for the type of wine that they are creating. The White wines go through a quick pressing process because they only want to extract the sugar and juices, whereas the Red grapes must go through a longer process where the juice will ferment with their skins for a longer period of time in order to get those bold and rich flavors.

There are a few varietals of grapes that are grown on their own personal vineyards
including Concord and Cabernet Sauvignon. The rest of the grapes are either imported from other vineyards, or they use concentrated juices to ferment into wines. The juices are stored in these large metal bins.











All of the bottling also takes place on site. The bottling room seen in this photograph can be used to produce thousands of bottles a day. Because the bottling equipment needs to be safe to use on bottles that hold liquids that people consume, the equipment is sterilized using Aristocrat Vodka instead of harsh cleaning chemicals. I found this comical at first considering people drink Aristocrat and it is truly bad Vodka, but she was completely serious when she said it.

Another interesting fact about the bottling process, they recently switched from real corks to synthetic corks due to a bacteria being found in cork that is causing a lot of health problems, and a cork shortage. However the new head winemaker that will be taking over next year wants to switch back to real cork.

Some of their wines are oaked in barrels while others are stored in these large holding containers waiting to be bottled. 

This is a picture of a prototype of a barrel that Cornell made to make barrels more affordable. Instead of crafting them from hand and taking the time to curve the wood, they created this straight boarded prototype that allows for the boards to be easily interchanged, which means even if the barrel breaks that the boards can be easily replaced and they do not have to spend thousands on new barrels. The new barrel was initially tested with water, but burst open, the Chateau is waiting for Cornell to send them a replacement. 









The barrels used at Chateau Morisette are bought from France and cost approximately $1200 per barrel. Once they have lost some of their luster the Chateau donates them to smaller wineries that cannot afford to buy brand new barrels.

The tour was incredibly short, lasting perhaps 10 minutes but it was gorgeous and incredibly eye opening about the process that wine bottling goes through. My favorite part by far however was the wine tasting. I actually discovered my new favorite wine here.

I am not going to go too into depth about these wines as you can see from the sheet that I was given the characteristics of each wine as well as my own thoughts on them scribbled off to the sides. But I do want to make special note of a few for anyone reading that may have the same taste in wine as me.  

First off, Red Mountain Laurel is the best wine ever created hands down. I know many of you will not like it but I loved it for this one simple fact. It was created from Concorde Grapes and nothing else. For this reason, it looks, tastes and smells like Concorde grapes. It is essentially adult grape juice and I am all about that. If you don't like sweet or grape juice this wine is not for you. 

Our Dog Blue, their signature Riesling. It is the perfect blend of sweet with a bitter note at the end. It finishes well and has strong notes of citrus. I picked up a bit of a floral component and I really really like it. 

The 2014 Vin Gris was just alright it was lacking complexity and overall flavor. Our tasting host took us off the tasting list and let us try the 2012 private reserve Vin Gris and the flavor difference was night and day. The 2012 nose was so complex featuring apples, grapefruit and a cherry component all while relaxing on a hint of jasmine and it finished buttery. I was blown away by the flavor of this wine. 

Finally I have to rave about "5 Red Grapes" it is just that, a blend of 5 red grape varietals. My pallet was so confused after trying this wine. Being someone that hates red wine I was able to not only appreciate this wine, but I enjoyed it as it was the perfect blend of sweet and bitter. The right amount of dryness brought it all together for an experience that I highly recommend. Smelling graham cracker on the nose really helped my love for it as well. It was very inviting all around. 

After the tasting I enjoyed the scenery and the drive home. I highly recommend a visit to Chateau Morrisette for so many reasons. The History is fantastic and unique. The scenery is breath taking and the wine is incredible. This is a must do for all people over the age of 21.