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About the Vineyards
Old House Vineyards
18351 Corkys Lane
Culpeper, VA 22701
540-423-1032 (p)
540-423-1320 (f)
info@oldhousevineyards.com
Tasting Hours
Mon/Thurs/Fri 1 - 5pm Saturday 11am - 5pm
Sunday 12 - 5pm
All other times, please
call for an appointment.
Also available for
weddings, corporate
functions and other
private events.
Click here for
more information or
call Allyson Kearney.
About the Wine Making Some facts and figures about how we make our wine at Old House Vineyards.
  • Harvest is done in early September to late October as each of the varieties of grapes ripens.


  • Wine HarvestWe pick the grapes in the cool of the morning into 25 pounds lugs and bring them to the winery.


  • The crushing and destemming happens on the top level. The crushed fruit falls down in to the press or fermenter, depending on the type of wine being made.


  • The white wine pressing happens very gently to keep from breaking down the skins too much. The goal is to separate the juice from the skins without adding any more solids to the juice.


  • The juice is settled in a tank and racked off the sediment into a vessel for fermentation.


  • Racking is the term for sucking the clean wine off of the sediment or lees on the bottom of the vessel. The wine is transferred into a clean vessel and the lees is left behind in the old one.


  • Lees is filtered and kept separate or thrown away. Sometimes the filtered lees can be very good and add a component to a wine. Other times it can be hard or unpalatable and will be thrown away.


  • Wine MakingWith red wine the grapes are crushed into a bin and the fermentation begins. The skins of a red grape have all of the color and a lot of the hearty character that defines a red wine.


  • The cap of a red fermenter is the grape skins that float to the top of the vat. These skins catch CO2 that is released from fermentation.


  • Punching down is what is done with a stick or paddle to get the cap back into the wine. The is done 2-3 time a day during the fermentation process.


  • To press off the grape skins after fermentation, the juice is pumped out of the bin and the skins are shoveled into the press. The pressing is similar to the whites in that pressing is gently is better for the wine.


  • We rack the wine after a couple of days of settling into oak wine barrels.


  • The barrels used are a combination of both new and older oak. We use French, American and Hungarian. Each gives the wine a little different character.

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