Meet the First Woman to Win Virginia's Governor's Cup: Melanie's Winemaking Story

Forrest Kelly: 00:00:00

Welcome. Welcome to The Best 5 Minute Wine Podcast with Forrest Kelly.

Melanie: 00:00:06

We head to the city that is known as nation's horse and hunt capital for its fox hunting, steeple chases and large estates. Our 35th president, John F. Kennedy, built a 167 acre ranch just outside Middleburg, Virginia.

Forrest Kelly: 00:00:22

The Best 5 Minute Wine Podcast

Melanie: 00:00:25

Hi, this is Melanie from Cana Vineyards and Winery in Middleburg, Virginia. The original owners named the winery after Cana of Galilee, where Jesus performed his first miracle and turned water into wine.

Forrest Kelly: 00:00:38

Okay, so your title position at the winery is what?

Melanie: 00:00:41

I am the winemaker and vineyard manager and wholesale department inventory, whatever else might need to be done.

Forrest Kelly: 00:00:49

There's some different titles in there because usually they stop right after winemaker.

Melanie: 00:00:54

Yeah, no, no, I'm the entire seller team too. So anybody that you might see working in a cellar, if you want to throw that title towards me, that would be appropriate as well.

small production. I do about: 2500

Yes, that is my first career. Okay, so you jumped into that and then where did the transition happen from that to becoming where you are now?

It's not a seamless transition. Come on now.

You know, it's so interesting around here in Virginia, we're getting to the point where you will see winemakers, that this is their first career. But, you know, my group, my crew, most of us, you can say also, what did you do first? And we all have our own stories.

So, yeah, I was a physical therapist for about eight years. I traveled kind of around the country doing that. Worked in all different settings. I really liked my job.

I found wine and, you know, I tasted it in some of the areas I worked in the country and then I started reading books and, you know, I took a continuing education class and thinking this is just a hobby. This is something I do in my free time. And, you know, it's pretty cool. I like it.

You know, I did buy like a textbook from the bookstore and just read it for fun.

d then I moved to Virginia in: 2006

It couldn't have been a first career for me. It's just nothing I knew anything about until later. So I landed in Virginia. I was still a physical therapist.

I started working in a tasting room on the weekends just to get a little closer. I mean, the itch, like, it was. It was just an interest, but it was something that was tugging so hard that I couldn't.

I couldn't keep it to the side in my spare time anymore. So I knew I had to make a change.

I was close to getting that degree in wine, so I looked at Fresno State out there on the west coast by you, and I was about to go back to school. Mind you, I did just pay off my first two degrees about two years ago, so I would have been in debt still if I did that. I almost did.

I met a winemaker around here in London county. His name is Doug Fabioli. He said, okay, that's one path you could take. He's like, but you don't have to.

I was like, oh, well, this other winemaker where I was working in the tasting room told me I had to. That was the only way to get there. I think that's what I'm going to do.

I was smart enough to sit down with him one day and say, all right, what do you mean, I don't have to? Yeah, just start working in the cellar. So the great thing about that first career being physical therapy is that there was tons of work.

I went pretty young, and I could get three or four days of work every week. It was always there for me.

So I had a way to pay my bills, get by working three or four days a week, and then three days a week, I could intern an apprentice and kind of learn from there.

Forrest Kelly: 00:04:04

When did you make actually the transition and go from doing per diem on the physical therapy? Both feet are into the wine business.

Melanie: 00:04:12

Yeah. So it was September of: 2009

I did that for two years. And at first it was easy enough to do, but towards the end of it, man, it got tough.

tember, it was the harvest of: 2011

Forrest Kelly: 00:04:44

The Best 5 Minute Wine Podcast

Melanie: 00:04:48

the most exciting one was in: 2022

And we're at a place in the state now where we've got about 300 wineries, and there's about 700 submissions to that competition. And it's. It's been a lot of the same.

when I came onto the scene in: 2022

Yeah, this is true. This is true. So that was a. That was a big deal, you know, when we were talking and working on the promotion for everything.

So we have the Virginia wine marketing board, which is an office from the state here that really supports and promotes our industry. And we had a Zoom call and start talking about everything, and I asked them all. I'm like, who was the last woman that won?

And we all looked at each other, and no one could call it. So that was pretty exciting. It was definitely, definitely, definitely a big one.

Well, you can give yourself a round of applause and say, neener. Neener. So I also didn't mention that you are a woman owned winery, that the winery is classified as woman owned and correct. Lisa Petty is the current owner of Canada Vineyards.

So is it. Is that a. Do you feel that when you come on the property or it's just business, is normal?

I don't know. I don't know. I think some people know it, but I don't know if you feel it.

I think the big thing you feel when you come on the property here, at least I hope. And it's what we're going for, is we're really welcoming, you know, accepting kind of place. Right.

You're not gonna walk in and feel like, I have to know a lot about wine, and I have to dress up really nice. I have to do everything proper and do everything right and feel uncomfortable to be here. You know, we want.

I personally, and thankfully, it's on board with everybody's mission here that I feel like wine should be accessible. Wine, to me is food. It's, you know, our work on the farm to produce this product. It shouldn't be something elitist far away in the sky.

That's hard to understand. And everyone can take a. What they want away from something they're.

Drinking, just to rewind just a little bit. So, Middleburgh, Virginia, now, is. Is it correct? Middleburgh is less than a thousand people live in the city, or is it even a city?

Oh, it's not a city. Yeah, I don't know how many people live out here, but we're a horse country, Virginia.

So we've got big, beautiful horse farms in a cute little downtown.

In doing some research for this interview, I found that Virginia's weather has been described as Goldilocks climate.

Never heard this term before, but it's not too hot and not too cold, and that Virginia is officially considered a humid subtropical region due to winter frost. So tell me about some of the obstacles that you have when it comes to weather.

So, Virginia, and I would say probably most of the mid Atlantic, is a challenging place to grow grapes. I mean, there's a lot of us doing it, and I think we're making great wines, but we're working our tails off for it.

We fight so much humidity, and that's our biggest beast out here, right, because the disease pressure is often always high. Because of that, we deal with too much rain, the opposite of what you guys see out there on the west.

We have a lot of rain, a lot of moisture that we deal with. And it's hot, especially here where we are, that the heat is paired with that humidity. And even at night, it doesn't cool off sometimes.

So you might get that beautiful diurnal shift out of here in the east. Oh, it cooled down tonight, it's 80 degrees.

And, you know, that makes it a challenge, especially when you want to have enough acid coming in with your fruit. So, yeah, it's not an easy place to grow grapes, but it definitely works.

If you do in the property, I see where it's 43 acre farmland. When the customer comes in, are they coming right on it? Can you set that scene of what the property is to the viewer or when they come in?

Absolutely. When you're coming to Cana, you'll be driving on route 50, which is the biggest east west road, you know, around here by us.

And you'll drive up the drive, depending on which direction you're coming from, and the vines go almost all the way down to the road. So you're going to see the vineyard immediately. You'll drive up the hill towards the winery.

So the acreage that's planted under vine is about seven and a half acres, and it is all on a beautiful south facing hill in front of the building. So pulling up to the property and you get the beautiful Virginia background. What do we see when it comes to the winery?

that was first built here in: 2011

My cellar is in the back half of the building on the first floor, so you won't see that unless I invite you back.

er purchasing the property in: 2019

So it's a beautiful four season kind of outdoor space for us people, when. They come to the property, how long do they typically spend? An hour, 2 hours?

It could be an hour, 2 hours. It could be all day. It kind of depends.

So you can come in and we do offer a guided tasting with one of our associates that will kind of talk you through a little bit about the history and guide you through some selected wines that we really wanted to show off what we do here.

Or there's always an option to also pick out some flight where we'll give you some detailed notes to read and you can kind of taste through on your own. You can do glasses, you can do bottles, have a pretty big, expansive lawn as well. So people will come and bring a picnic and stay for the day.

You can bring your kids, you can bring your dogs, as long as everybody is well behaved. When you win an award, where do you get the most satisfaction?

I think the most satisfaction. You know, again, my rose program is super important to me.

So when I enter rose specific competitions in my wine show, well, that's real important to me because I know those judges are just tasting rose and they know that product well. So that's important to me. On the Virginia side for our governor's cup is always, always important to get a good nod there.

But, you know, like you said, you don't make the wine to win the competition. It's good to get recognized.

But, you know, winning something and then having my colleagues, my winemaker friends around that and we sit down and taste wines together and they can say, oh, my gosh, Mel, that's good. That almost means more to me than those awards. Yeah.

So the: 2019

They both came from the: 2019

I was like, if something doesn't come home with a gold, I don't. I don't know what's going on, honestly. It's what I was thinking. I wasn't thinking higher than a gold. You know, the gold is where you want to be.

I wasn't thinking case. I wasn't thinking cup winner. But I'm like, something here has got to have a gold medal. And I looked to the reds for that.

the Reds I knew were good in: 2019

So I'm like, something's got to get a gold at least, right? And then I got the phone call. This is the hardest part about winning that competition.

It's nice that you know ahead that you won because you have to speak and you can prepare for it. And they want a lot, a bunch of notes on the wine to give out to everybody that night. So you need some time to lead up.

But they gave me about six weeks of telling me and me not being able to tell anybody else, which was a really hard secret to hold. But I did it. I did it very well. I got the phone call from our organization and she's like, how you doing today? I'm like, good. My boyfriend.

I just came back from a hike, and she's like, oh, this is gonna be better. I'm like, okay. And I knew she was calling about the governor's. I'm like, all right, this is my gold medal phone call, right? Here we go.

She's like, okay, you got two that got gold medals. I'm like, great. She's like, and they're both in the case. I'm like, okay, Angie won. I'm like, what? I was certainly not expecting that. I really wasn't.

nd then she told me it was my: 2019

So I have seven and a half acres that I farm here on the estate, and then I have other partner growers in Virginia that I work pretty closely with for a lot of my other production.

But the wine that won was 100% my estate, and that was probably the most validating thing because I think I felt stronger as a winemaker than a grape grower before, but that was. That was my fruit. Like, that's in my hands. I'm also in the vineyard all season doing the canopy work with my crew. I mean, that.

That fruit is in my hands from the beginning to the end. So it's super validating for anyone that might want to take anything away from that for me, like, you can't. Like, that was me in that bottle. Let's wrap up our interview with Melanie from Cana Vineyards as we fill our shopping cart with five of their best wines.

Albarino. Right now, it's my: 2022

But the 23 comes out. Alberino is something I love.

This is grown about: 1015

So that wine is special because there's a special relationship with a grower, a grower that immediately was, hey, what do you need? Let's look at this together. And that's the kind of respect that you don't always get right away.

As someone new to the industry from, you know, a different world, I'm a little bit younger. Not anymore. And a female. Right, like, you don't have automatically get that respect sometimes, and I always have from this vineyard.

st hands down my favorite. In: 2015

y planted their own Albarino.: 2015

So they called him and said, well, we actually don't need this. So since we were already picking up Merlot from his vineyard, he said, hey, do you want Albarino? I said, yes. Noodle harvest. Don't have a plan for it.

Never made Alberino before. Tasted a couple. I liked them. It's a different white wine. I said, this sounds fun. Don't know what yeast I'll use.

I think I have a tank I can put it in. That was the first year.

Now we're almost on to year ten, and I think together, we've learned so much about that grape and that wine production here in this region. It's doing well in Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, kind of the whole mid Atlantic. Okay, what's some other favorites? I mean, should we go to Rose? Let her rip. That's your favorite?

All right. I mean, it is. Let's see if we can keep this short enough. Here's. Here's where you get to edit.

merlothennae. I'd made one in: 2015

'm not buying your fruit yet.: 2016

2017, I took Merlot that was already slated for our red program, shifted it to rose. I said, well, I know where there's good merlot. It's growing right next to the Alberino down the street.

w the rosea Merlot started in: 2017

The fruit that goes into my rose, other winemakers would put into red programs and think it's a waste to make rose out of it, but I don't. I've been lucky enough that we're building a brand on rose here at Cana because it's been successful enough.

lowing me to keep doing it in: 2019

bernet Sauvignon, and then in: 2021

And again, thankfully, you know, it only works if people are going to gonna want to drink the product and buy it too. But it's been working for us. So I have three resets. They're all single varietal coming from different vineyard sites around the state. What is your number one seller?

Well, probably right now it's rose. Like, we sell a lot of rose. Yeah, for sure. For sure.

We're getting known for Alberino now, too, which is great, because I really want to own that lane, too. See, there's where that competitive nature comes in. You want to own that lane. Get out of here. Next door neighbor.

Yeah, well, I want them to be in it with me. But, you know, you, sometimes it's. I want to push to the top because there's a lot of things that are like, well, you know, hey.

the fruit in the ground since: 2006

You can't cheat. Like, I had someone taste it and say, oh, it's even better than this winery. I'm like, well, we've been doing this longer.

I mean, even if you're a great grower, winemaker, like, you get one shot a year to do it. Like, you need the time.

As we say goodbye. Thank you very much, Melanie. I know you're very busy for taking the time. You've got a lot of energy, continued success.

Make sure you give us your contact info.

You're welcome. It's just so fun. Like, I'm not always out in the tasting room, but sometimes I'm there, and I really do just love what I do. I'm like, oh, you.

You want to let me talk about it? You're interested. I'm like, all right, let's go. Our website is keenavinyards.com. you can also follow us on Facebook and Instagram.

Forrest Kelly: 00:19:34

The best five minute one podcast.

Melanie: 00:19:37

Don't forget my favorite part.

Forrest Kelly: 00:19:39

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