an interview with
EMILY PELTON
from Veritas Vineyard and Winery

When a person gets a phone call from her parents saying they’re moving from Florida to Virginia to start a winery, she might suspect a midlife crisis. That’s exactly what crossed the mind of Emily Pelton in 1999 when her mother and father contemplated such a big life change. But by the next day, Pelton had signed on to join them, trading in her pursuit of a masters degree in infectious diseases at Emory University for a masters in enology from Virginia Tech.

From the outset, Veritas has been a family affair. Mother Patricia Hodson is the vineyard manager, the grower of the grapes. Youngest daughter Chloe recently joined her, after a stint in Tasmania with a world-renowned winemaker. Son George is developing Veritas’ online presence. Father Andrew is one of the two winemakers. The other is eldest daughter Pelton, who spoke with us recently at the winery in Afton.

Edible Blue Ridge: How is it working with the family?
Emily Hodson Pelton: It’s wonderful. All of us are involved now. My father and I complement each other. He has an understanding of the styles; I have more of a processing background. I haven’t had as many wines as my dad has. I haven’t been to as many regions as my dad has. But I know what it takes to make, say, a fruity merlot.'

EBR: How is your winemaking informed by you being a woman?
Pelton: I am one of a few women who are making wine around here. But I didn’t feel at any point that it was like breaking into the old boy’s network. Maybe that’s because I went around and met a lot of people at the very beginning. I didn’t just show up as the daughter of a vineyard owner. I was sure it was what I wanted to do. I worked really hard on it—I did presentations, I was at all of the conferences. And I’m sort of a tomboy, not a girly-girl. So that may have helped too.

EBR: Did studying at Virginia Tech give you a leg up in understanding the local terroir?
Pelton: I got to meet a lot of people in the state wine industry, which made me feel like I could call them up and say, “Hi, how’s your cab franc going?” But also it was great to learn with fruit from here. I very nearly went to University of California at Davis. I realized that if I learned there, I would then have to re-learn here. We have so many nuances here that as an industry we’re just getting a hold of. We need to suit our winemaking to what we’ve got, not to whatever everyone else is doing.

EBR: What’s the biggest misconception people have about being a winemaker?
Pelton: It’s solo work—not a people-person sort of job. I’m working in a cold cellar. I’m an introvert by nature, so it suits me very well. Working with grapes is very sticky, very goopy; there are a lot of bugs. [Sister Chloe comes around the corner, juice running down her hair and face. She’s covered in petit verdot.]

EBR: You’re nearing the end of your harvest. What’s that like?
Pelton: For me, harvest goes from mid August to mid October, so I might have a more extended harvest season than most. I do a sparkling wine, and for that I have to pick early, before the grapes are actually ripe. I’m also a little closer to the Blue Ridge than most vineyards. The sun goes down behind the mountain on me before it does on them—and that means I’m a little later with my reds.

EBR: What’s new at Veritas?
Pelton: This spring, we planted malbec and petit verdot. It’s the first time we’ve planted since the beginning. Even though to me the subtleties among the wines were very clear, I didn’t want everything to seem like cab franc and merlot to everyone else. I wanted to to bring a little more color to the palate.

EBR: What’s it like to work surrounded by such amazing scenery?
Pelton: I’m typically down in the cellar. Sometimes you don’t see where you live the way you should. But at 12:30 p.m. every day, we all stop and come up to have lunch together—all 15 full-time employees, outside when possible. For our customers, we want them to sit down, look at the view, sit by the fire—go into the vineyards and see for themselves. We want people to have an experience and feel that they’re comfortable here and comfortable with our wines.

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