A visit to the state's first urban winery tasting room

A special feature to Brilliant Stream by Amy Skeens

With its contemporary, cool-color tones and stainless steel furnishings, the feel of the small tasting room at Findley Martin urban winery in Morgantown is clean, yet still cozy and welcoming. The all-in-one main room features steel winery tanks, an open work area, a tasting area, bottles of wine for sale, and even a local artisan Maker-of-the-Month display of handmade goods for purchase.

“This set up is not really traditional, but since we’re such a small space, everything is on wheels and can be folded up and moved,” said winery co-owner Amy Sidwell. “On production or bottling days, we move everything out of the way, sanitize, and set up our stations.”

The signature blue bottles and uncluttered labels follow suit. The minimalist design certainly fits the theme of the winery, but they also serve a purpose. Co-owner Murray Gervais explained, “The way we get our juice from grapes is kind of a double-edged sword because we can get grapes year-round from different regions, but in order to make the label, you don’t want locked into one region on the label.”

Their solution is labeling the wine simply as a grape variety, such as Sauvignon Blanc, without naming a source region. This allows them flexibility to source the juice used to make the varietal from one location in the fall and another location in the spring. Currently, the majority of their fruit is sourced from California and the Pacific Northwest.

Findley Martin labels all their wine Table Wine, which allows the flexibility for the ABV to fall anywhere in the 7% to 14% range.

Tasting Notes

At Findley Martin, you can sample only three, 2 oz. pours of wine per visit (WV state law). Since they often have more than three wines available, make your selection carefully. In February, here is the line-up we found.

Cabernet Sauvignon

Findley Martin: “This dry, red wine’s flavors include plum, black cherry, and warm spice.”

$19 per bottle

This is the boldest of the four current wines featuring velvety, dark stone fruit notes that jump out of the glass. It is easy to sense the warm spice that the wine makers intended without it being an overpowering sense of black pepper or even tobacco. This wine would be perfect for someone looking for a medium-bodied red without a harsh tannin burn or leather taste. This wine is well-balanced, and something that you could take to Friendsgiving to show you friends that not all WV wines are sweet.

Pinot Noir

Findley Martin: “A light-bodied, red wine with cherry, floral, and earthy notes.”

$20 per bottle

This Pinot is the newest release! The Findley Martin take on Pinot is harder to explain, as it carries many complex notes. It may not be what you expect based on other ones you’ve tried. Pinot Noir is very well known for being an “entry level red” as the most popular light-bodied red wine. It certainly is lighter than the Cabernet, but somehow carries a much earthier feel. There is somehow a sort of green acidity that you might get from fresh herbs or tart berries. A good descriptor is fresh. Don’t expect a jammy, berry taste like you might with some other Pinot brands you may have seen before. This is more of the characteristic tart cherry or fresh strawberry instead of a vanilla, dark cherry or blackberry.

Sauvignon Blanc

Findley Martin: “You might taste flavors of green apple, passion fruit, peach, or lime in this white wine.”

$15 per bottle

The grapes used in this Sauvignon Blanc were from California, but it might easily be mistaken for a New Zealand wine. This is a crisp, zesty wine with the green herb flavor that you know and love. It is certainly more floral than fruity, but that is what is fun about this acidic wine. This Sauvignon chilled would be perfect for a warm summer cookout, or evening on your back porch.

Muscat Canelli

Findley Martin: “This slightly sweet, white wine may remind you of peaches, rose petals, or sweet citrus.”

$16 per bottle

Some wine snobs might tell you they’re seeing Muscat wines being chosen as a “classier” alternative to White Zinfandel. Essentially, it tends to be a little sweeter for easier drinking. This wine is going to be perfect for your friend who tends to drink sweeter wines. Moscato is the Italian name for Muscat, but keep in mind that the Muscat collection of grapes varies more than lots of other varietals. This Muscat isn’t sweet like you’d expect from something like a grocery store Moscato… but you could still let your in-laws pour it over ice. You could easily find peach on the nose and palate. It isn’t nearly as crisp as the Sauvignon Blanc, but still carried some of that green taste that you won’t get from a Moscato or White Zin.

Future releases

You’re going to want to keep an eye on their social media for new limited-edition releases. In addition to regular small batch wines, Findley Martin intends to offer some very limited wines only available in their tasting room. Keep an eye out for a possible wine sourced with fruit from Fairmont, WV, as early as this summer. They value working with West Virginia farmers when they can.

They’re hoping an upcoming tart cherry wine that features chocolate will be ready sometime in April 2020. The fastest they’ve ever made a batch of wine was around 6-8 weeks.

When asked what types of wines they would like to make in the future or if they had a dream wine they’d like to try to make, Sidwell expressed interest in producing a version of their silver-award-winning Viognier. Gervais agreed that we could expect to see a Viognier on the horizon, but that she, a self-described Chardonnay Girl, would love to do an unoaked take on the popular wine. Chardonnay may be one of the most polarizing wines out there: either you love it, or you hate it… but an unoaked Chardonnay is practically a different wine. It could even convert some of those haters. They both expressed a desire to work with Viognier from Virginia and would love to get some Chilean and South African grapes. And that’s not all.

“We are hoping to be able to get some Marionberry juice,” Sidwell added. “They’re basically big blackberries, and we made a version when we were still making wine at home.”

In just a short amount of time Findley Martin has seen huge growth. Having gone from award-winning amateurs to having a tasting room, and soon to be selling in some retail and restaurant settings and featured at wine festivals, the feat is nothing short of impressive. This operation is likely to continue to evolve and grow. So stop in now so that you can say you knew them in their early years.

BrilliantStream

A visit to the state’s first urban winery tasting room