(upbeat jazzy music) >>Well, we're here at Stone Mountain Vineyards and I'm joined by Deanna Gephart, who with her husband, has this incredible winery.

And thank you so much for having us, for welcoming us to your beautiful view (chuckles) and to talk a little bit about your winery.

>>Well, thank you for being here, we really appreciate it.

>>Absolutely, so tell me a little bit about how you found this place and what you do here.

>>So we retired from the federal government in 2016 and we had been looking for a winery and then we found this place and we just fell in love with it.

The original family, the owner, really had a passion for the wine and he also had been traveling in Europe and saw how they had all of these vineyards on the mountain sides.

So he felt like he could come here and do the same thing.

And he owned a lot of land up here and so was able to actually get that done.

>>So tell me what varietals you grow here on the mountain and then what varietals you purchase elsewhere.

>>So we have a five acre vineyard up here.

We only grow at this point in time chardonnay and pinot noir.

The pinot noir, we did a little bit of a test field about four years ago with it and it has just loved it up here.

And so this spring we actually put in an additional 700 plants and a pinot noir so we're gonna be strictly chardonnay and pinot noir on this upper field.

This field is between 17 and 1800 feet which has some challenges but it also has some great advantages.

We don't get frost up here.

So our fruit don't suffer from a lot of what the other farms have to deal with in the spring.

So that's really been helpful to us.

And then we buy fruit from Loudoun County, from Nelson County, and also from some of the farms in the Monticello area.

>>So talk to me a little bit about the difference in growing mountain fruit as opposed to growing when you're down in the flats.

>>Some of the things, the challenging side of it is that we have a little bit of a shorter growing season and we don't get as much heat up here but we don't get the humidity as much either.

So some of the things that they really fight with down there 'cause we have the constant airflow going off the mountain it kind of pushes the undesirable things like frost right off of the mountain and we don't have to worry about any of that.

>>Well, I'm anxious to head into your winery and taste some of your incredible wines.

Let's do it.

>>Let's do it.

>>(laughing) Okay.

So I know you make two different styles of chardonnay, one that's more crisp and one that's a little more buttery.

So let's try your reserve.

>>Absolutely, so this particular wine I only do five barrels of this a year.

>>Oh wow.

>>So this comes right out of the field and we put it into the barrels.

We use French oak and neutral oak on this and it's then stirred in a surly fashion and so it stays in those barrels for about 10 months.

So then it comes out and comes upstairs.

>>Mm, oh my.

>>Cheers.

>>Cheers!

Oh goodness.

(sniffing) That has the most amazing tropical aroma, some butter, ooh.

(upbeat jazzy music) Oh, I love it.

So tell me a little bit about the one that's more stainless steel barrel.

>>So that one I laughingly say it makes itself, >>Yeah.

>>because the grapes come out, you know, we press 'em right off, it goes right into stainless steel tanking tanks and primary fermentation and we settle it out and clarify it and it's in the bottle, it's that easy.

But the acids we get out of this field are so special that it really holds its own.

And it's a great, you know, front porch when it's hot and humid out.

It's so nice and cold and that brightness in that wine is just so refreshing.

>>Well, let's taste that rosé.

>>Okay.

>>So this rosé now is brand new release, we just ran out of our last year's.

So this is actually the pinot noir out of our field.

It's about a 40% pinot and about 60% merlot.

And the merlot is also from Virginia here so it's really special.

>>Ooh, that has a nice bouquet.

Mm.

(jazzy music) (glass clinks) Oh wow!

I get a lot of strawberry and raspberry in this.

>>Mm-hmm.

>>So nice.

Now you have a beautiful blend.

>>Yes.

>>Tell me a little bit about your blend.

>>See what you think of this one.

>>All right.

(jazzy music) The color is beautiful.

>>After having the rosé in the glasses this is- (Tassie laughs) I lean toward the reds usually.

>>Oh yeah.

(jazzy music) (bottle clatters) Oh wow.

I really get a lot of plumb and cherry on the nose.

>>Very good.

>>Mm, nice.

(jazzy music) (glass clinks) Oh that's really good.

What a great blend.

>>Thank you.

>>Well I love this, it's absolutely incredible.

>>Thank you.

>>So what do you see in your future here?

>>Well, you know, as I said before, we do about 1600 cases a year and I think that we're probably going to expand that just a little bit, just so that we can get back into it, a little bit of distribution.

Right now we sell everything here in our tasting room and I think one of the challenges for some people is the roads, so being able to have other places where they can get the wine is important as well.

>>Oh yeah, sure, sure.

Well it's absolutely incredible, and here's to you and Jim (glasses clinking) and years of success.

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