Spring
- Trellies maintenance
- Bud break
- Clipping and bud selection
- Canopy management – tie up vines to trellis
- Bottling aged wines
- Live music on most weekends
- Return of Dock Dogs
Summer
- Canopy management
- Flower trimming
- Thinning leaf growth
- Veraison – change of color of the grape berries
- Vineyard floor management
- Whites harvested
- Live outdoors music
- Dock dogs competitions
- Meetups for Aussie Shepherds, Mutts and more
- LabFest
- PondFest
Fall
- Late Whites harvested
- Reds harvested
- Vintification
- Punch-down and pump-overs
- Pressing and transferring to stainless steel or barrels
- Start of aging
- Hot Mulled wine returns to the menu
- Dock dogs competitions
- Australian Shepherd Meetups
Winter
- Racking and moving new wine into barrels and stainless steel for storage and aging
- Cleaning barrels
- Pruning vines
- Removing dead vines and overgrowth
- Maggie Malick Wine Club Christmas Party
- Dock Dogs Awards
The Beginning
Since ancient times, wine has been stored in natural caves because they provide high humidity, which minimizes evaporation, and cool, constant temperatures – key components of aging wine.
Maggie Malick Wine Cave’s 215-acre property extends up Short Hill Mountain, which is part of the Blue Ridge Mountain range. But its soil is composed of soft shale that won’t support a cave in its mountain side. So, we built one.
Wine caves are an integral component of the wine industry worldwide. Ours was was purchased as a “cut and cover” cave kit. The photo slideshow, below, illustrates how it was built.
Our Wine Cave is a versatile space that serves as our tasting room, as well as where we ferment, store, blend and bottle Maggie’s award-winning wine. Come and see it for yourself!
We’ve Grown
In 2019, Maggie tripled the winery area by adding a whole new building. It is large and spacious . This facility functions as a wine production area where we make our fine wines, and it is also available for private events and weddings.
The expanded building can seat up to 125 people and has ample room for caterers and their food preparation areas.
With increased demand for Maggie’s wines, she is also using this room for oak barrel aging and stainless steel tanks. This is a working winery.
We have also added outdoor seating with nearly 100 tables located across our acreage.