Grand Opening

Our day started with tastings of our wines along with Tarara and Fabiolli Cellars. Matt, Shevaun and I were well orchestrated behind the bar not skipping a beat with serving our water, breadsticks and cheese to our wine tasting guests. It didn't take long for the bar and tasting room to fill. Visits from Craig and Liz Opitz (and birthday pup Sawyer) and Jon and Kristina Lebert (and kids) really left us feeling proud not only that they came out, but the our kids believed in our dream too. 
To see the number of people come through the doorway with excitement that something "adult" has moved into Town and that stays open late at night, was true conviction that what I had been thinking all along was correct.  A visit by the Town of Purcellville Mayor, Bob Lazaro honored us with the first official Town ribbon in a surprise ribbon cutting ceremony. Meredith Thomas was on hand to sign her recently released book, "Images of Purcellville" a pictorial history of the quaint town in western Loudoun County.

Grand Opening 29 Vines
105 E. Main Street, Purcellville, VA

Jon Lebert, Mayor Bob Lazaro, Matt Barbagallo, Mary Beth Barbagallo
Meredith Thomas and Carolyn Lazaro

The story of the day my dad stood by our the back door and looked into the yard and said,"you should grow grapes" kept getting told over and over to the visitors. Telling our visitors the story of the 38 vines that were planted in 2007 and were eaten by rabbits down to the root stock in the "big snow" of 2009 - to become 29 Vines was entertaining for them just as much as it was for us. Celebrating Matt's birthday and having a "thank you" party for all of those that helped and believed in us - from our neighbor wine tasters, to our mentor, to our wine helpers and build-out experts, was the icing on the cake.


Thank You Open House
Monica Palmer, Jen Huber, Susan and John Slupe


We are so happy to be a part of the Virgina wine industry. What a great experience - I really AM a lucky girl!  Mary Beth

It's All Coming Together

I guess the very BIG news is actually small. Our first grandchild arrived Tuesday, weighing in at 6 lbs. and 1 oz. Emma Grace is an 18 inch bundle of love and a true blessing to our family. Mom and Dad are adjusting well and you’ll be seeing more pics of our latest release here in the future. 

Winemaker, Matt Barbagallo and 3 hour old Emma Grace

It’s was a very busy week in the tasting room. Among the items we coordinated last week was the installation of the new A/C unit. The window unit that was in the back of the building could not reach to cool the front of the tasting room, so a more energy efficient and  powerful, sleek unit made by Yamaha made it’s way to the mid wall and does a great job. County inspection tomorrow. Hopefully occupancy permit will be right behind it.

We met with our Alcoholic Beverage Control (ABC) agent Friday to go over the details of the tasting room. If the Commonwealth does one thing right, it’s that they hire great people.    

Road trip Saturday with our Concierge proved successful to round out the last part of our track lighting purchase. The track lighting has been installed.

Picked up two Black and Decker 2.7 cf refrigerators for the bar. We’ll have a larger refrigerator in our back prep room to store additional wines. These were a bargain $79 each and I couldn’t pass up. 

If you’ve driven by, you can see that we still have paper on the window. Please don’t let that discourage you from stopping by and say hello while we are in dust mode. The plan is to remove the brown paper today, clean the windows and put temporary lighting filtering shades until the custom shades arrive at the end of the month. I guess you can tell we DIDN’T use Next Day Blinds!

More touch up painting today and some rearranging in the tasting room to make way for furniture set up this weekend.  We should be rockin' and rollin' by mid August.

I'm Convinced We'll Open Within 30 Days

As you know we were targeting the opening of the tasting room July 1. I let my optimism jump the gun on that one. But as we continued to remodel the inside of the building, that was the original movie theater in the Town of Purcellville, we continued to unveil more issues... even in the dark.

We had been using flood lights and portable fans to guide us through repairing, painting and building.  Something we soon realized was not a good move. There is a lot of touch up painting to be done once the electrician has completed his work this week. To comfort our customers an 18,000 BTU unit has also been installed.

We have been able to add seating with the help of donations and Craigslist. The Purcellville ReStore has been a source for lots of our last minute items we need that Nichols Hardware didn't have - like doors for the back room. The Internet cafe chairs have been ordered, but we're still not sure if 2 or 4 are arriving,  and seems we'll just have to wait and see. The window shades have been ordered and are to arrive before July 31 (again... worth the wait $$).

Our temporary sign- hey!  It's within our budget and
keeps the heat out of the room.

This is looking toward the back of the room.

This is looking toward the front of the room.
Notice our unique window covering.

If the electrical is finished by Tuesday and the light installation is complete by Thursday (that's my optimism again), then we can finish the touch up paint, paint the hospitality cabinet Friday. Continue with building  the bar Saturday and Sunday and Monday clean the floors. YiPpEe! For some reason I'm thinking there are 38 hours in the day.

July 1 Has Come and Gone

Just like any other good story, there is always a twist and this one is no different.  Labels that were submitted are still awaiting approval from the Feds, so we might as well take our time and do the Tasting rRoom right.  We've picked a great color scheme that will match anything you're wearing.  So you'll always look good in our Tasting Room.

A couple of questions asked recently were - Will we have food in the Tasting Room and will we have live music, etc.  The answers are YES!  It is our responsibility to make sure our guests may compliment their wine with a light fare.  Other food options are available for delivery in.  All the details will be posted soon.  While we have a huge pool of artists to pull from, I'm a little partial to the Nashville music scene.  Stayed tuned for the music announcements.

We have been fortunate to take advantage of this downtime to get our professional photo shoot done by Erin Nicole Photography, a natural light photographer.  What would be a photo shoot without our winery dogs - and there are four of them Henry, Bunny, Chance and Lucy.  Check out Erin's great work at: http://erinnicolephotography.com/

Henry - Australian Cattle Dog / Beagle Mix Age 9
Sometimes known as "Rory"

Bunny - Australian Cattle Dog / Beagle Mix Age 9
Got her name because she often hops.

Chance - Beagle Age 7 months
Also know as Archie and K9 of active duty serviceman serving in Iraq.

Lucy - Cairn Terrier Age 5
Loveable, adorable, pocket size and has recently learned to bark alot.

Website will be up in a few days so keep checking.  Cheers!  Mary Beth

Coming Soon!

Seems like this wine thing was just idol conversation in 2002 when my Dad stood in the doorway of my home, and looking out into our modest yard said, "you should grow grapes."  He passed away later that year and the grapes were forgotten until 2006.  That little voice inside of me said I should continue the farming legacy that brought our family to Virginia in the 1600s during the potato famine.  My farm that year consisted of yellow and zucchini squash, bush beans, tomatoes and cucumbers.  I kept looking at that slope in our yard.  An gut wrenching emotion came over me and I needed to follow his word and plant grapes.  So with the help of Sebastien Marquet, Doukenie Winery and ever green thumb those 38 vines were planted.

Years of  patience and misfortune have led us to our modest winery.  We are planning to open our Tasting Room located at 105 E. Main Street in Purcellville, VA early July.  For the next two weeks we will be feverishly working to meet our deadline.

Guess What!

Our labels are with the printer and off to TTB and soon to the Commonwealth for approval.  We're closing in fast on our anticipated soft opening of July 1.  I just want to take a few moments and catch my breath between projects. 

So while the labels are a waitin' we'll be a paintin'.  Annoucement soon for our Purcellville location.

Bottling Continues

Its looking a lot like a winery now.  After bottling 40 cases of Sweet Rebecca Lynn and 24 cases of Chambourcin we're rounding the bend to complete our line up for our anticipated opening July 2011.  We'll be bottling our last wine, Karma, this week.  Nothing makes me more nervous than tasting the wine before filtering, then bottling it, and wondering what the surprise will be when we open it in 6 weeks.  Winemaking is truly a procrastinators job.

Our Anniversary

Today is our 22nd wedding anniversary.  If you had asked me 10 years ago what I'd be doing today, making wine and building a business would not have been one of them.  Last night Matt and I bottled 19 cases of  2010 White Chambourcin.  Don't really know how this one is going to come out.  All the sampling that we did it was at cellar temperature.  I think we put one on ice and and give it try!

We're Approved by the Commonwealth and .... Our Logo

As of May 1, 2011, we're the Commonwealth of Virginia's newest winery.  We are excited and exhausted in our journey we're taking while continuing to manage other jobs.  We find we do lots of nodding and agreeing, since we have no time for intense conversations.

Our friends and family have joined in helping us design our logo, and though we'd certain aspects about each designer, we could only pick one.  Our website will be coming later this year as we focus on wine making, bottling and our tasting room location.

We would like to thank the following for spending time and energy to develop logo ideas for us:

Becky Lynn Street, Revolution PR Nashville
Stephen Mackey, Mesh Multimedia
Linda Toki, creative artist and photographer
Natalie Lambert, Savoir Faire Media, creative designer
Antonia Ciaverella, art teacher and architect

No News MUST Be Good News

Still awaiting the Commonwealth's approval.  Our logo and tag line are under development.  Can wait to show it off.

Welcome to 29 Vines

What started as a test of my farming abilities inspired by my father, I planted 38 vines in our modest back yard.  Matt dug the holes and creating a French-drain style (crazy idea I know) to protect the roots from drainage issues.  We watched as they grew and leafed out above their grow tubes.  They grew so big we were sure we'd be getting "tonnage" the following year.  We removed the tubes at the end of the season and watched as autumn airbrushed the foliage.  Winter came in with a vengeance. We had 40 inches of snow in our yard and saw nothing in our backyard that looked like grape vines.  The slow meltdown was an opportunity to enjoy all that nature brings.  The icicles, the snow drifts, the rabbit track imprints in the snow.  How peaceful.


Reality set in when the snow was gone.  Our vines had disappeared.  Rabbits are hungry too and as the snow melted they ate whatever was peeking from the snow. So coming into spring we had twenty nine surviving vines.


Mary Beth and Matt Barbagallo