Think about ALL the goodness that goes into making your wine.
One of the things I love about wine is simply the pleasure of enjoying it. Savoring the flavor profiles, varietal character, or simply the style in which it was created. The excitement of learning about its history, how it was made, who made it or what the vintage year was like. Wine has such a rich history threading together culture and community.
Welcome to Wine & Wellness Episode 2: Lets Delight in the Pleasure of Wine:
Have a watch to learn about how to enjoy your wine while considering its benefits.
Overall what fruit we do have is looking good – and we are validated in the organic program, working through our second year of the 3-year process for certification, with our certification to be issued in the summer of 2027. Yay !!!!
Listen to this post as an audio file!
Well, you win some & you lose some. As of July 8, 2026…
The good news first: The Organic program is working very well. I know at first the season seemed easy enough & dry, and I honestly don’t know where we are technically in terms of “technical” drought – but once the precipitation kicked in starting the Wednesday before Memorial Day, it seemingly hasn’t stopped. Which means we got seriously tested.
It rained 3.5 inches from Wednesday evening prior to Memorial Day straight through that Sunday Morning, and then another 1.5 inches from that Sunday evening through the following Wednesday. Well – I will say I am more committed than most growers, as I was in there on Sunday of Memorial Day weekend spraying all day while the Tasting Room team held down the fort. This prolonged rain started immediately as bloom in our Albariño was starting. Bloom is the most sensitive time, as the flowers open to expose unprotected tissue that is to become the berry, being a worst case scenario for disease, and the rains can also seriously disrupt pollination. Well – the pollination actually went ok, and the good news is we made it though, up to now, with at most half a percent loss due to disease, maybe less. Phew !!!!! Albariño definitely has shown itself to be our most susceptible block – so this is good intel.
And I gotta say this was important – not just for the evidence of a successful organic system, but because Albariño is my most fruitful block following all the April freeze losses, and Petit Verdot is coming in second – and also looking great !!!
There is still one phase to watch – as the Albariño goes from green to gold during veraison, which is when the evidence of latent infections can show up, but I’m feeling ok about it.
So overall what fruit we do have is looking good – and we are validated in the organic program, working through our second year of the 3-year process for certification, with our certification to be issued in the summer of 2027. Yay !!!!
The bad news: We are looking at a crop of only about 15% to 20% of normal – ouch. Cause who else can we buy Organic Virginia Grapes from ?????? And this is on the heels of drought and winter injury giving us a low crop in 2025. But the injury seems to be increasing. We lost a good many Chenin Blanc vines and the remaining Chenin vines are mostly struggling. We lost about half the Petite Sirah vines. And it looks like an entire half acre of the youngest Tannat vines (clone 794) all have enough vascular damage to the trunks that they are all dying. (Yes we still have 2 other older acres of Tannat that seem okay). These young Tannat vines, as the season progressed, just all turned yellow and purple with tiny stunted shoots. They just won’t grow or green up, so I expect to lose them over this coming winter.
So we have decisions to make, work to do, and dealing with another unexpected round of investment. Can’t say its an easy time to be in small business right now.
Otherwise, Sandy and I are doing well, and appreciate all of you that cheer us on.
Thank you as always for sharing our journey! Jason
Jason Murray, Arterra’s winemaker, built this vineyard around one conviction: the fruit has to be right. Everything else — the native yeast fermentations, the neutral oak aging, the minimalist winemaking — only works if the grapes coming off the vine are exceptional.
Great wine is not made in the cellar — it is grown in the soil. At Arterra Wines, every bottle begins with careful attentiveness in the vineyard. The video below describes the season-by-season diligence that goes into growing estate fruit worthy of the creating wines of distinction and character.
Growing Quality Fruit Takes a Good Site, Perceptive Oversight and Attentiveness to Ever Changing Conditions
Arterra’s estate vineyard sits in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains in Delaplane, Virginia — The heart of Fauquier County wine country. The terroir here is superior for grape growing. But terroir alone doesn’t make a great vintage. It’s the choices made every day across the growing season that turn potential into great wine.
Jason Murray, Arterra’s winemaker, built this vineyard around one conviction: the fruit has to be right. Everything else — the native yeast fermentations, the neutral oak aging, the hands-off winemaking — only works if the grapes coming off the vine are exceptional.
The Leading Edge of Organic Practices on the East Coast
Arterra is in the process of attaining organic certification for the estate vineyard — a rare commitment for any East Coast winery, and a meaningful one. Growing Vinifera organically in Virginia’s humid climate is genuinely difficult. It requires vigilance, patience, and a willingness to accept more risk in the field in exchange for cleaner, more expressive fruit.
That philosophy runs through everything at Arterra: no additives in the wines, spontaneous fermentation with indigenous yeasts, and a deep respect for what the land naturally offers each year.
Watch the Preparation to set the stage for the 2026 Vintage
The video below documents what preparing for a new vintage looks like — the early-season assessments, the hands in the dirt, the conversations about what this year’s fruit might become. It’s a grower’s perspective on winemaking, and it’s the foundation of every wine we produce.
Welcome Arterra Wines 2026 Spring Release featuring 2025 Rosé, Chenin Blanc and Zero Albariño.
2025 Vintage Year
A uniquely wet spring with persistent precipitation through July, followed by an exceptionally dry autumn season.Impressively ripe with vivid varietal attributes.Quality was overall elevated in 2025;yet yields for most vineyards were remarkably low, due to vine stressdefined by a drought in 2023 that intensified through mid-2024; with implications in the June 2024 critical vine developmental stage that initiates bud fruitfulness for the subsequent season.This was a regional impact.
2025 Estate Dry Rosé
A blend of Cabernet Sauvignon and Petit Verdot, with 48 hours skin extraction, producing a darker and captivating Dry Rosé. The 2025 Rosé is an exploration of varietal suitability and influence of skin contact duration.Wonderfully fresh and flavorful. 25 cases available.
2025 Estate Chenin Blanc
Produced in stainless steel, bottled early to capture vibrancy.As our Chenin block matures, we are excited to identify typicity of golden apple expression, along with impressive complexity, and freshness.Extremely limited = 20 cases available.
2025 Estate Zero Albariño
Produced in stainless steel, bottled in November, no added sulfites. Exploring the expression of wines produced with only naturally occurring sulfite.As pure as wine can be.Harvested early in the Vino Verde ‘green’ style with bright citrus and assertive acidity.30 cases available.
All the Ways Our Club Can Enjoy these Beautiful New Wines:
Come taste anytime DURING THE RELEASE PERIOD:
Club Members taste for free during this time April 9th-13th April 16th-20th April 23rd-27th
You can Also Join us for our Spring Soirée
Not only will you enjoy these three new wines, BUT ALSO a special one-night only tasting or 2 library wines:
🥂 Five exceptional wines. Four thoughtfully crafted pairings. One spring evening of pure enjoyment!
Join us as we welcome the season in the beautiful light of a spring evening at Arterra Wines. Spring Soirée is a one-of-a-kind spring whites release event where guests are invited to stroll through a curated series of food and wine pairings, each thoughtfully designed to showcase the beauty and complexity of our newest white wines alongside two beloved library selections from the cellar. 2020 Tannat and Petite Sirah!
Beginning at 6:30pm, you’re welcome to explore five distinct pairings at your own pace — all custom crafted by the talented team at Nomad Provisions — while winemaker Jason Murray shares his insight into each wine’s unique characteristics and mingles with guests throughout the evening.
JASON MURRAY
Pioneering Organic Viticulture The Arterra Estate Vineyard
In August 2024 the entire Estate Vineyard entered transition to 100% Organic Operations with Baystate Organic Certifiers; starting the 3-year process to become the first Mid-Atlantic vineyard growing European wine grapes organically certified.Vintage 2025 wines were verified as organically compliant having completed the first inspection by our certifier.
Arterra Wines means “The Art of the Land”. We craft our wine in an artful way emphasizing what we deem as best practices to make the highest quality wine.
If you don’t feel good after drinking your wine, it was not produced using these best practices.
Welcome to Wine & Wellness Episode 1:
Have a watch to learn about what makes Arterra Wines so special and what we consider to be our best practices to achieve the highest quality cleanly crafted wines!
Overall we are feeling optimistic that the universe is supporting our refocusing, and that all of the energetics are aligned positively. This is a journey, it is a process that must unfold and play out. Instant gratification is not really an aspect of vines and wines. Patient persistence is virtuous.
1st Organic Harvest Season: A Transformation
Transformational: This is the best way to describe 2025 for Arterra.
We’ve converted the entire Estate Vineyard to 100% Organic farming, partnering with Baystate Organic Certifiers. Overall it is has been successful. Our estate vineyard has 7 grape varietals, and including the various clonal selections of some varietals, the vineyard is divided up into eleven distinct blocks. This allowed for the ability to trial various approaches to the organic systems, and fortunately only one block suffered notable losses, and fortunately that correlated with testing the lowest application rates of the organic disease management materials, so it makes sense. To say 10 blocks fared well, while early in the learning curve, can be viewed as a very high rate of success. This is all the more impressive considering April through July had some of the most challenging disease pressure that we’ve experienced in 23 vintages of growing winegrapes in the mid-atlantic region. Yes we’ve had other difficult seasons – 2011 & 2018, but neither of those was as front loaded on challenges as 2025 proved to be. As such, for bringing the European vinifera grapes into organic production in Virginia, this was absolutely a “trial by fire” situation. More than a few improvements became evident to implement in 2026, and we’re excited to lead the advancement of the potential for Virginia Viticulture.
In addition to this “intentional” transformation – the season itself followed suit, and has swung dramatically from persistent saturation, to ongoing moisture deficit since the start of August. These dry conditions, plus a light crop load, are leading to a fast ripening season. While the Organic program suffered negligible crop loss overall, we did start the season with a low crop due to extreme drought stress at a critical time during the 2024 season, and some winter injury. In terms of 2024, the June-ish time frame is when the vines initiate their buds and fruitfullness for the following growing year; that time frame in 2024 suffered extreme drought conditions and left the vines nutritionally unable to properly prepare for future crops, due to the vines simple need to prioritize its own survival. This led us to a more focused effort to elevate vine health via nutritional status, and the silver lining of the extreme wet in the first half half of 2025 was getting the vines uptake of nutrients way up, growth back on track, and preparedness for a good crop in the 2026 season.
The winter issues cannot be avoided, occasionally. We choose to grow more sensitive varietals, simply due to our passion for the wines they produce, and our more “moderated site” in terms of temperatures. While our site allows us to grow varietals such as Roussanne, Tannat, and Petite Sirah in terms of survival, it does not mean that sometimes we won’t suffer bud damage that reduces the crop. I’m of the understanding that in those varietals we lost many of the primary fruitful buds during an early cold snap in late November & early December 2024, and then lost additional secondary buds during a cold snap just before bud break in 2025 when the vines were at a vulnerable stage. Fortunately the vines have recovered over this growing season, but in those varietals the yields range from moderate to low. This is the risk of farming practices that push limits in pursuit of exceptional quality. Sometimes nature is going to give us hits, sometimes we get rewards. Yes there are “safer” options, but how often does “safe” correlate with “great” ? We accept this risk on the journey towards reward.
As of 9-15-25 we have brought in Albariño, Chenin Blanc, and Rosé. All are of spectacular quality. We do need a bit of rain as some vines on the driest soils are starting to show signs of stress, but otherwise with light-ish crop loads, the reds are fast paced towards picking. We are seeing exceptional quality potential considering the overall dry weather pattern for each of the remaining varietals – Cabernet Sauvignon, Petite Sirah, Petit Verdot, and Tannat. As of right now – 2025 for Arterra is a “less-is-more” transformational vintage, and while that may seem to have its downside, we are feeling optomistic that the universe is supporting our refocusing, and that all of the energetics are aligned positively. This is a journey, it is a process that must unfold and play out. Instant gratification is not really an aspect of vines and wines. Patient persistence is virtuous.
Arterra will be the first Organic Vitis Vinifera vineyard in the mid-atlantic.
Introduction
Arterra initiated a half acre organic trial in 2023 with Cabernet Sauvignon, expanded it to a full acre in 2024 by adding Roussanne, and has now converted the entire 8.5 acre estate vinifera vineyard to 100% organic operations in 2025. While successful, there is still a great deal of risk and learning underway, as we discover varying degrees of susceptibility to different diseases amongst the different grape varietals, and as we trial several concentrations and combinations of organic spray materials with attention to expense and efficacy. Arterra will be the first Organic Vitis Vinifera vineyard in the mid-atlantic – as such this is a self learned adventure; going where no-one has gone before isn’t easy and isn’t always smooth. But if we don’t push forward, we can’t ever expect to get anywhere. We are taking the lead on this one, but also have full respect for the mid-atlantic region’s one certified organic vineyard, Loving Cup, as they have taken these steps before us with Hybrid and American varietals.
Aerial View of Vineyard
Why Now? What has Changed?
Grape Vine Flowers
The achilles heel was Black Rot infections during flowering and fruit set, which occurs in late May through Early June. Within a few weeks of flowering, the young small berries would wither and die. Black Rot is acutely extreme in the mid-atlantic, and elsewhere is generally a minor disease, as such minimal research and development has targeted it. However throughout much of the world, there is significant pressure against use of conventional chemicals, and many countries are implementing severe restrictions. This has led to development of an increased number of biological pesticides; these are disease control materials that either are actual living biology (bacteria) or compounds derived from natural materials. These biopesticides can either colonize the plant surfaces and out-compete the pathogen for the infection site; or can generate an allelopathic response that wards off the pathogen; or initiates a stronger plant defense response; or has a ‘paralysis’ or lethal impact on the pathogen.
Tannat Grapes Cluster
Sulfur and Copper have been standards in organic production, and still are. Arterra has incorporated two biological materials and one naturally derived compound; all of which work together to mitigate pathogens. Each alone might not be sufficient, but working together seem effective. Some of these materials are quite costly, and so trials are underway.
Timing of both sprays in relation to weather, and hand work to eliminate trapped wetness on the vines, are the critical first steps of management. A good site with air movement is extremely favorable. Some varietals seem more robust than others.
How Does this Fit in with Arterra Clean Wine?
Arterra has always utilized an organic program from mid june through harvest. Furthermore, regardless of organic versus conventional materials, there must not be any pesticide residue on the fruit at harvest, because Native Yeast are very sensitive to fungicide. Therefore we have always stopped spraying anything that leaves a residue far enough ahead of harvest to know we are bringing in clean fruit. So I honestly always felt ok about it from the clean wine perspective. The layer that this brings is a comprehensive philosophy of quality and stewardship. Now we no longer have to be concerned with exposure to conventional pesticides, the vineyard is responding very favorably to the organic materials for their overall health, and many of the pests simply seem to less prefer our vines as their food source. The vineyard overall has an improved energetic. And for anyone who buys organic fruits and veggies, those organic options really do always taste far better, so we assume that is a big improvement to our wine as well.
Jason with the Vines
If the Grapes are Organic, is the Wine also Organic or Clean?
Trilogy on the Patio
VERY MUCH NO!
To be organic wine requires native yeast fermentation, no sulfite added, no other synthetic chemicals added. To have all those criteria is extremely rare. Most “natural wines” and “clean wines” do use sulfite, just at lower levels; European Organic Certification actually does allow significantly ore sulfite than USA organic certification. As such most American wines are labeled “Made with Organic Grapes.” But after that – if you can find it in a store, it is often still mass produced wine with conventional winemaking practices – which is certainly not clean. It is quite often the smaller producers – like Arterra – that are focused and dedicated enough to carry out clean wine practices along with organic production. To me this means Native Yeast, a tiny bit of sulfite, and nothing else.
True Terroir wines at their best are in large part a reflection of growing the right grape in the right place.
Affectionately referred to as the ‘Arterra Trio’, Tannat, Petit Verdot, and Petite Sirah have established themselves as core varietals to the Arterra experience. Each produces distinct varietal wines, and have come together as the blending components of the “Crooked Run’ Arterra Estate Vineyard red blend.
Tannat and Petit Verdot have been focal points for winemaker Jason Murray since his earliest vintage in 2005. Both varietals immediately proved to be ideal selections for the pursuit of highest quality Virginia Wine, especially in light of truly minimalist clean winemaking practices. If a wine is not going to be “fixed” in the cellar, then the attributes of the grape must be superior, as well as consistent, year to year.
Both Tannat and Petit Verdot thrive in our region with the warm nights that accompany our warm days during the growing and ripening season. When these two are grown in coastal or desert regions, the cold nights will simply not ripen through the high acidity, and cannot produce a balanced wine. Additionally in favor of Virginia’s conditions, both varietals will cease growth and water uptake during the later phases of ripening, resulting in these vines ability to produce impressive consistency of concentration despite the often wet soils during autumn, by way of dehydrating the berries.
Of the two, Petit Verdot may be more widely applicable to the mid-atlantic, as it has superior winter hardiness, reasonable yields even after frost damage, and is not prone to rot even in prolonged wet conditions. Tannat possibly has more intensity and robustness due to a more significant progression of berry dehydration – but alas it is not a survivor on low sites or very high sites – where the cold conditions can be fatal. But an ideal mountainside planting of Tannat has impressive potential for producing impressive wines.
Petite Sirah was planted as a trial block following after some initial impressive small scale batches at Muse Vineyards. While the first couple harvests at the Arterra Estate Vineyard of Petite Sirah were lighter and more rustic, the third and subsequent harvests have yielded impressive wines. As the vine gains age it offers a smaller yield, smaller clusters, reduced rot pressure, and allows longer ripening time. Petite Sirah, unlike Tannat and Petit Verdot, will only dehydrate in the most intense of drought years, but none-the-less it produces a wine with an impressive fine-tannin focused structure, which is a huge attribute when blending the Crooked Run. The response to variably wet soils in the fall does result in a bit more swing annually, but not at all to the extent of catastrophe that some less suitable varietals suffer.
The profiles are each unique: Petit Verdot is big front volume with a mellow finish, Tannat is robust and carries though, and Petite Sirah is less berry oriented and more structured.
Having trialed 5 seasons now with small batch Norton, we’re gaining the insight to unlocking that varietal, and assume it may well find its home amidst this spectacular trio, as we slowly are preparing ground and propagation techniques to establish Norton in the estate vineyard.
Arterra Wines owner and winemaker, Jason Murray walks you through the importance of “Knowing your Source” when it comes to the wines you consume. As a conscientious consumer, it is important to understand how the wines you drink are made and more importantly what goes in them.
Have you ever thought of the environmental impact of choosing local vs. international? You should.
Do you know what is in your wines and who makes them? You should.
Furthermore, cleanly produced native yeast wines express high quality grape growing and winemaking of a scale that allows truly focused craftsmanship rather than mass production. Have a listen to learn more.
