Located a little south of Culpeper off of US Route 29, Prince Michel was founded in 1982 by Parisians Jean and Sylvain LeDucq, in the early days of Virginia wine production. It is one of the most visible wine producers in the state, both with its location on the main Washington-Charlottesville highway, and its two satellite tasting rooms – one on Carter Mountain in Charlottesville, and the other in Crozet. The winery has 100 acres under vine and leases property from several other vineyards. Ownership of Prince Michel changed hands in 2005, when the winery was purchased by Kristin Holzman (now Kristin Easter), who owned one of the properties which supplied grapes to Prince Michel. Wines are produced either under the Prince Michel or Rapidan River labels, with the latter wines tending to be more sweet and sometimes non-grape based.
Wine. Tier II. The reputation of Prince Michel wines has gone up and down over time, partly affected by the wineries’ image of being a high-volume commercial producer. The Rapidan River series also tends to produce a somewhat quirky rather than quality image, with chocolate wine among others. Yet among the large menu of offerings, some produce good quality. At the 2019 Virginia Governor’s Cup state-wide competition, three Prince Michel wines were awarded silver medals (Pinot Grigio, Chardonnay, and Symbius), and four bronze medals.
Setting. The main winery is located right off a busy highway, where the mountains just begin to make their appearance south of Culpeper. Inside, the tasting room is large, but tastefully decorated with a couple of tasting bars and tables and chairs. The winery also provides a detailed exhibit of the wine-making process. The satellite tasting room on Carter’s Mountain has phenomenal views (it bills itself as having the highest elevation of any tasting room in the state), though they carry only a part of PM’s full line. The newest PM tasting room in Crozet is in the Chiles Peach Orchard, and offers home-made ice cream and fruit-picking as well as wine.
Stories. Virginia Wine by the numbers. Virginia wine is big! Here are a few numbers: the state’s 310 (and counting) wineries have annual wine sales now total 6.6 million bottles. That’s a lot of bottles! Equivalent to half a million cases. Vineyards in the state now cover some 2,600 acres. Close to 10,000 people are employed in the industry in Virginia. Tasting rooms in wineries across the state registered 2.2 million visitors in 2018. The impact on the state economy has been estimated from a low of $1.5 billion a year, to a high of $5 billion. And Prince Michel is big, with production on the order of 40,000 cases annually – around 8% of all wine produced in the state. That makes it one of the three biggest producers in the state and one of the largest on the east coast.