Sugarleaf Story
Residing on a breathtaking estate, Sugarleaf Vineyards has evolved before our eyes into a majestic place and experience. Although, this endeavor began as a hobby, we are very proud of what we have accomplished thus far and we cherish the opportunity to share our story with you today as an award-winning vineyard and winery.
The idea to establish a vineyard as a leisurely hobby came about in 2001. The Founder and CEO's (Jerry Bias) good friend, Mike Taylor, with whom he collected rare “cult” wines from the Napa and Sonoma regions of California encouraged Jerry to, “make his own great wines.” Although the newly purchased estate was meant to be a retreat, and eventually a retirement property, the thought of also having a vineyard and making proprietary wine was irresistible. So once the vision manifested, Jerry turned to the University of Virginia and several well respected vineyard consultants in Virginia to confirm the property’s attributes for vineyard growing and to determine the specific location on the property where this hobby would be planted. After discovering that the estate, was located at an elevation ranging between 750 feet at the pond to 1,100 feet at the mountain ridge, had parker loamy soil, resided on limestone platelets, was the beneficiary of natural drainage, received cooling from the wind over the mountains, and had five springs on the estate that provide a source of natural irrigation, it was quickly recognized that the estate had more than just the bare necessity attributes for a vineyard. All of these characteristics made it clear that the estate was a diamond in the rough.
After all of the research was compiled, the vineyard site was determined, and the first order of vines was placed on September 6th 2001 , Jerry’s friend and motivator for this project, Mike Taylor, passed away in the tragedy of 9/11. After all of the time, passion and effort that went into preparing to embark upon this hobby, Jerry continued and began to plant 300 of the existing 2,075 vines himself. Not realizing all that it would take to plant a 4 acre hobby-vineyard; professionals were once again brought onboard to plant the remaining acreage.
Sugarleaf Vineyards still did not have its name and there were still no plans to build a winery or any formal production facility. The first harvest looked promising, and the second and subsequent harvests produced exceptional fruit. We sold our exceptional fruit to select neighboring well-respected wineries from 2003 until 2005, and our grapes produced award-winning vintages for those wineries.
At the time, Virginia was an emerging wine region, and our estate’s thriving vines sat in the middle of Monticello, the most prestigious region in the state. We decided to take advantage of the opportunity that began to seem “meant to be”. Lauren Maillian and Jerry Bias agreed to change the name from Hollow & Hill Vineyards to Sugarleaf Vineyards. The hobby stage was now over and the focus would be spent marketing the vineyard and winery as a well-respected newcomer in the Monticello Region.
In the fall of 2004 Dan Neumeister and Jerry designed the ideal boutique wine production facility and began to construct the winery from the ground up. It was very important to us that we incorporate the minimalist gravitational pull method of production into the winery’s architectural plan so that we could preserve the natural qualities of the fruit during processing, but we also wanted the winery to remain a quaint and inviting space that overlooked the vineyard. The winery was completed in the beginning of 2006 and we seamlessly produced our first Sugarleaf vintage in our new custom state-of-the art facility. Today, Sugarleaf Vineyards is an award-winning boutique vineyard in the heart of the Monticello region, producing limited quantities of each varietal so that we can remain committed to our vision of producing fine wine. We never imagined that Sugarleaf would be what it has grown to be today. Sugarleaf is living proof that with patience, diligence and faith, dreams do come true…
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