Hume Vineyards

(Been there, checked it!)

RESPECTFUL OF TRADITION, unbound by convention.

We’re a little winery with big ambition. Please take a moment to explore our site & learn what makes us who we are and how we approach things.

This is the part where we tell you about how Hume Vineyards is the culmination of our dream, the combination of our passion for wine and our love of the Virginia Piedmont, of our spirit of innovation and experimentation, of our goal to craft outstanding wines, and of sparing no hardship while doing it.

We probably also should say something about how we’ve worked with some of the most forward-thinking minds in the wine industry since inception and how we spent years searching for the optimal property that affords ideal climate, soil, and orientation.

Wait, we almost forgot the part about how we handpicked our clones and rootstocks to best reflect our unique terroir. How could we not mention “terroir”? It’d be like watching a sitcom without a laugh track. And, or course, how we only grow varietals that are best suited to producing outstanding wines in Virginia.

But frankly, we’d much rather be able to tell you in person over a glass of wine. So why don’t you stop by our tasting room and we’ll share our story with you. Don’t worry. We’re small enough that either one of us will be pouring the wines on the day you visit.

Saturdays from 12 pm to 6 pm and Sundays from 12 pm to 5 pm. There is a $5 tasting fee per person.

We visited Hume Vineyards on 21 August. Here’s a link to Nancy’s post on our visit. There are few things more exciting than being among the first to try out a new business, which entitles you to say, years later, “Oh, I was there when they opened.” As if the dollars you spent were the very cornerstone that propped up the enterprise through its shaky infancy.

All photos from this winery

We visited Hume Vineyards just five weekends after their official opening in mid-2010. As we drove up the gravel drive, we looked at two beautiful old barns to the right, a grand old white house to the left, and a new wood cottage in the middle, and said “Is that the winery?” Compared to the expansive opulence of so many of Virginia’s wineries nowadays, Hume is subtle, homey, and sincere. We loved it.

Entering the empty-for-now tasting room with its high tin ceilings, wood floors, and weathered-looking burgundy wainscoting, we instinctively relaxed – we felt the history, but it was new and fresh. The owners, Stephane and Andrea, worked behind the tasting bar, pouring their four wines and telling the story of how their vision came together: the three old barns, the terrible winter of 2010 that caused one of the barns to “not make it,” as Stephane said, and their decision to give new life to the old barn’s red tin roof – as wainscoting.

That careful attention and creative solution is evident in the wine, as well. New wineries typically need lots of mulligans in their first few years, but not here; Hume’s wines are tasting-room ready. The $5 tasting fee buys you the crisp Vidal Blanc, a spicy Chambourcin, the promising Detour (a tannic, chewy blend of Cab Sauv and Merlot), and a nice Cabernet Sauvignon. We picked up a bottle of the Detour ($23) and wished we could have laid in a lot more.

A Viognier and a Sauvignon Blanc are on the vines now, for future release. Stephane says that they’ll continue to grow slowly, sticking with what they like to drink, because as he points out, “You can’t please everyone or you’ll go crazy.”

Hume will clearly be around a while. So you’ll forgive us when, a decade or more from now, we lean back in our chair, raise a glass of Hume’s 2018 Detour, and claim that, were it not for the $33 we spent at the winery way back in 2010, they may not have made it. And if you hurry, you can make the same claim – as Stephane pointed out, in Virginia’s winery explosion, a new winery doesn’t get to claim “new” status for long.

Vidal Blanc; Chambourcin; Detour (blend of Cab Sauvignon and Merlot); and Cabernet Sauvignon.

From Washington, DC: I-66 to Exit 27. South on Crest Hill Rd. (VA-647); West on Hume Rd. (VA-635); South on Leeds Manor Rd. (VA-688); Right on Washwright Rd.

From Front Royal, VA: I-66 to Exit 18. South on Leeds Manor Rd. (VA-688); Right on Washwright Rd.