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Vintage Notes

Here are the 2007 wines being bottled this Spring:

2007 Cabernet Franc
This exceptional Cabernet Franc resonates with overtones of plum, raspberry & spice, providing the perfect accompaniment to grilled pork or roast chicken, delicious cheeses and good company.

2007 Chambourcin
This smooth, full-bodied Chambourcin resonates with spicy flavors and a peppery finish, providing an ideal accompaniment to traditional American fare, including steaks and hamburgers grilled to perfection.

2007 Cabernet Sauvignon
This well-balanced Cabernet Sauvignon resonates with overtones of rich fruit & deep cherry, providing a delightful accompaniment to hearty meats, delicious cheeses and good company.

2007 "Secret Wine" (to be unveiled during the Grand Re-Naming Open House)

Press Releases

May 3, 2008: History Repeats Itself at Philip Carter Winery
April 8, 2008: Virginia's Wine Industry Attorney and America’s First Family in Wine enter the modern Virginia's Wine Business

History Repeats Itself at Philip Carter Winery

HUME, VA- Something wonderful is repeating itself at Philip Carter Winery. Today
1,800 grapevines are being planted in the vineyard. What is so special about the planting of these 1,800 vines, you ask? There are few places, few historic sites that can boast the depth of history that this number reflects, for it is the very same number of grapevines planted by plantation owner, Charles Carter, two hundred and fifty years ago, only this time Charles Carter’s ancestor, Philip Carter Strother, the new owner of Philip Carter Winery, is doing the planting with the help of some friends. How reassuring it is to know the vineyard is being restored with Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon, Chardonnay, Vidal Blanc, and Viognier. This Virginia family carries on the tradition which began so many years ago, proudly continuing the work and the pleasure of producing premium wines while assuring its place in Virginia’s wine history.

Virginia’s Wine Industry Attorney and America’s First Family in Wine enter the modern Virginia Wine Business

Hume, VA—Stillhouse Vineyards has been purchased by Philip Carter Strother and Danielle M. Strother. Located in Hume, Virginia, the winery is seated on 27 acres of rolling hills in the northern Piedmont and is in the heart of Fauquier County’s Wine Country.

Legal Counsel to the Virginia Wine Industry

Mr. Strother is the founder and managing partner of Strother Law Offices, a law firm that has represented the Virginia Wine Industry for almost ten years, with offices in Richmond, Loudoun, Fauquier, and Fluvanna Counties. Mr. Strother gained prominence in the legal community throughout the Commonwealth during his successful representation of thirty-nine citizens before the Virginia Supreme Court against a subsidiary of the world’s largest brick making company that threatened the community landscape where Horton Cellars and Barboursville Vineyards are located.

Over the years, Mr. Strother has served as general counsel to many Virginia farm wineries. He has been instrumental in the development of legislation to promote the economic viability of the Virginia Wine Industry, including drafting legislation, testifying before General Assembly committees and serving as a participant of the Secretary of Agriculture and Forestry’s Virginia Wine Industry Study Group. He also serves on the Advisory Board of Virginia Wine Lover’s Magazine, and he has taught and written on numerous topics that impact the Virginia Wine Industry.

A twelve-generation Virginian and a native of Fauquier County, he is a direct descent of Robert “King” Carter of Corotoman.

The First Family of American Wine

In 1759, a committee of the Virginia assembly was formed and charged with the question of economic diversification, a question made urgent by the depression in the tobacco trade. As its chairman, Charles Carter entered into correspondence with the London Society for the Encouragement of the Arts, Manufacture, and Commerce (now the Royal Society of Arts), which offered prizes for various desirable enterprises in the colonies, among them vine growing and winemaking.

Carter’s correspondence reveals that the prospects and methods for the cultivation of the grape in Virginia were an important subject. Carter had already begun grape growing at Cleve Plantation, his estate in Virginia, where he made wines from both native and European grapes (it is said), and it was natural that he should have chosen commercial winemaking as one of his proposals for economic reform in Virginia.

The London society took an encouraging view of Carter’s proposals and recommended various vines and practices, including the trial of distilling brandy from the native grapes. In 1762 Carter, who by then had 1,800 vines growing at Cleve, sent to the London society a dozen bottles of his wine, made from the American winter grape (“a grape so nauseous till frost that the fowls of the air will not touch it”: probably Vitis cordifolia is meant) and from a vineyard of “white Portugal summer grapes.” These samples were so pleasing a taste—“they were both approved as good wines,” the society’s secretary wrote—that the society awarded Carter a gold medal as the first person to make a “spirited attempt towards the accomplishment of their views, respecting wine in America.”

These were the first recognized fine wines of America.

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