Walsh Family Wines is located in Purcellville, on the site of the former North Gate Vineyards. Nate Walsh was the winemaker at one of Loudoun County’s best-reputed wineries, Sunset Hills, for seven years, as well as consulting for other wineries. With his wife Sarah he now has his own place, overseeing fifty acres of grapes at sites around Loudoun County.
Wine. One of Virginia’s Top 50 wineries, and one of Northern Virginia’s top 20 wineries. Mike Newland was named “wine grower of the year” at the 2022 Best of Loudoun wine awards. Walsh Family’s 2021 Bethany Ridge Chenin Blanc – one of the first Chenin Blanc based-wines in Virginia – was awarded a gold medal at the 2023 Virginia Governor’s Cup state-wide wine competition. The winery was also awarded four silver medals at the same competition, for their 2019 Russ Mountain Merlot, 2020 Petit Manseng and Bethany Ridge Cabernet Franc, and 2021 Bethany Ridge Viognier. Walsh wines awarded silver medals at the previous year’s competition included their 2019 Bethany Ridge Tannat, a Viognier, and their Twin Notch red blend. Walsh Family produces about 3,500 cases of wine a year, including a fizzy petillant naturel, Plateau, and an experimental dry red sparkler called Mezcla. There are also more bubbles in the future: The Walshes planted Champagne clones of chardonnay for a blanc de blanc sparkling wine.
Setting. In the fields and woods off of Route 690 in Purcellville in rural Loudoun County. Handsome tasting room which had previously won sustainability-related awards.
Stories. From winemaking to winery ownership. A booming wine market like Virginia’s has opened a great many opportunities for those who dreamed of opening a vineyard or winery. It has also opened many opportunities for those who didn’t have the capital, or the investment appetite, to own either vineyard or winery, but who wanted to make good wine. There have been far fewer opportunities, however, for those who started as winemakers to become winery owners themselves. For one thing, few wineries tend to fail: in many cases, owners have motives beyond economics for making wines, and tend to be more prone to stick it out in lean financial years than owners of other types of businesses. For another thing, not many wineries come up for sale – again compared to other businesses: only 1-2% of the state’s wineries have changed hands annually in the last few years, fewer than the number of new wineries opening annually. But sometimes the chance comes, and Nate Walsh is one getting that chance. Walsh made a name for himself working seven years as the winemaker at Sunset Hills, which has enjoyed one of the best reputations among Loudoun County wineries. Now that Northgate’s owners decided to move to other things, he is getting an unusual chance – to step from winemaker to winemaker and winery owner. Many other winemakers in Virginia are wishing him luck — and waiting for their own chance to take the same step.