The Governor and The Donald Team Up for Wine(1)
Plus, a vine robot that does it all, serious Burgundy wine fraud and Three Fat Guys, a new label from former Packers players
• Though even mighty California struggles to gain a foothold in the Chinese wine market (not if Yao Ming has anything to say about it), Virginia is already on the ground in Shanghai: "We did this little deal, 7,000 bottles of Barboursville wine going to this one province in China," Gov. Bob McDonnell told Unfiltered. "We see immense potential." It's one of the many wine initiatives the governor and his wife Maureen have pursued since taking office in 2010. The pair were in New York at Trump Tower this week with the "Virginia Is for Lovers" campaign to get the word out. After talking up Virginia's growing wine industry, the governor ceded the podium to a not-so-surprise guest: preeminent Virginia vintner Donald Trump himself. (Trump recently purchased the 350-acre former Kluge Estate Winery.) "From Thomas Jefferson to Donald Trump and Eric Trump, that's a pretty good lineage of Virginia winemakers," McDonnell declared. (Son Eric will be running the winery's operations.) Trump then enthused about the "spectacular" vineyard, and promised that his folks would do a good job with the winery, or he would have to tell them that they are fired.
McDonnell doesn't just talk the talk: Like the White House has on a national level, the governor has instituted a Virginia-only rule for wines served at functions at the executive mansion. A wine man himself ("primarily white"), McDonnell and his wife caught the bug while he served in Germany and fell hard for Mosel Rieslings. Now, he cites some Old Dominion favorites as the Barboursville Viognier, Kluge Estate New World Red, King Family Meritage and Williamsburg Winery's Governor's White (he acknowledged his bias there). And the McDonnells are now even winemakers themselves: The first lady discovered a certain Act 12 passed by the Virginia general assembly in 1619 requiring all men over the age of 18 to plant at least 10 vines and thought, " I'll plant 10 vines in the back [garden at the executive mansion], I'll say I complied with the law, and we'll have a little fun with it." Once the grapes are ready, they'll blend the Chambourcin with wines from elsewhere in the state for a bottling commemorating the mansion's 200th anniversary. The governor also spoke approvingly to Unfiltered of the corkage bill he signed into law last year, and he's trying to persuade restaurants to carry more local wines. "My wife, every time I take her to dinner, if there's not a Virginia wine on the menu, she'll always suggest to the manager that they add some," he laughed.
