A Cave-Aged Novelty Delights
A new wine aged in famed canyons is now for sale
The invitation in early December was irresistible. Randy Phillips, owner and winemaker at Cave Ridge Vineyard in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley, asked if I’d meet him at Luray Caverns to taste a red blend of his that spent the last year tucked away in a side tunnel of the popular tourist attraction.
Now, cave and cave, the French word for wine cellar, are false friends, not exact cognates. (The French word for a cave is grotte.) But a cave does have some ideal attributes for wine storage — namely, it’s dark and the temperature never fluctuates. People have gone to the depths of the Earth, or at least the oceans, looking for such ideal conditions to store their wine. The chalk crayères of Champagne are dramatic and legendary, and two of Napa Valley’s oldest wineries, Schramsberg and Beringer, have caves dug in the late 1800s by Chinese immigrant laborers.
On the appointed day, I met Randy at Luray Caverns. It was a nice drive on a cold, clear winter morning, and since Beltway construction near the George Washington Memorial Parkway is FINALLY finished,1 I made it out of suburbia with enough time to stop in Sperryville (famous for a shop advertising “Antique Tables Made Daily”) for a latte and a donut before ascending the curvy switchbacks over the Blue Ridge into the Shenandoah Valley. As I pulled into the parking lot, nearly empty on a wintry Monday morning, Randy slid alongside my Tesla in his pickup truck and waved me into the passenger seat. Our private tour was to start in the back, through the offices.
Inside, Randy introduced me to Rod and John Graves, brothers whose family has owned and operated Luray Caverns since 1905. Also there were Chris Taylor, Randy’s associate winemaker, and Charlotte Roberts, Randy’s granddaughter. After brief pleasantries, Rod led our party down some narrow steps into the cavern, past the point of discovery where Andrew Campbell, William Campbell and Benton Stebbins discovered the canyons in August 1873. Rod gave me the condensed version of the history while pointing out modern improvements that have made the tourist attraction more accessible and less slippery underfoot.
Luray Caverns is the largest series of caverns in the Eastern United States. It’s an incredibly beautiful spot that looks like some ancient potter went crazy on an acid trip. Generations of Virginia school kids learned here that “Stalactites hang tight, stalagmites might reach.” Rod led us by Dream Lake, an underground pond that perfectly reflects the drama of the cavern ceiling. Alas, no one was playing the stalacpipe organ, the world’s largest musical instrument, as we walked by into Giant’s Hall, where Rod pointed out the Double Column. Not that I’d have missed it, 47 feet of limestone believed to have formed when a stalagmite and a stalactite met halfway. But we were here for wine, after all.
“My father wanted to plant a vineyard and grow wine grapes on the property, but he fell ill and was never able to pursue that dream,” Rod explained. “So I’ve been thinking of doing something like this for a long time.”
“A long time” suggests regulatory obstacles. Indeed, Rod said it took several years to convince Virginia ABC regulators he wasn’t attempting anything untoward by having a wine produced and bottled across the valley and trucked over to be lost in a cave for a year.
Rod led us through a narrow crevice and unlocked a metal door. This led to a chamber pretty much what you’d think of as a cave, minus the spectacular geological wonders of the main caverns. Under the dim illumination of a few lights I saw a dusty old card table on one side and along the other wall several plastic bins filled with dusty wine bottles. The bins held 30 cases of Luray Caverns Underground Red 2023, a blend of 60% cabernet franc and equal parts cabernet sauvignon and petit verdot.
These were specially designed bins from Italy, Rod explained, pointing to the detritus of a standard cardboard wine case that had disintegrated under the chamber’s humidity in an earlier test.
“The caverns are a consistent 54 degrees F throughout the year, but the air reflects the humidity from outside,” Rod explained. In mid-December, the caverns were comfortably cool. I recalled bringing my daughter there 20-some years ago on a typically muggy August day when the clammy air inside seemed to squeeze my lungs like a rancid sponge and the floors were slick with moisture.
Two workers began carrying the crates of bottles out of the storage cave to a hand truck in Giants Hall for the journey to the surface. Randy grabbed a bottle and began wiping off the grime. From a satchel, he produced some wine glasses and another bottle of the same wine that had spent the year at his winery. As he pulled the corks and started pouring the wine, I could feel the excitement Rod and John Graves felt as their project in honor of their father’s viticultural ambitions was coming to fruition.
We tried the cave-aged wine first. We held our glasses up to the feeble light to reflect the bright ruby of the young wine, from the excellent 2023 vintage in Virginia. Then we sniffed, swirled and sipped. As I began looking around furtively, Rod motioned to the ground.
“Just spit on the floor,” he said. Man cave protocol.
The wine was delicious, deep and savory with black cherry and berry flavors and accents of black olive and tea. We nodded and smacked our lips in appreciation.
Randy poured the second wine, the control that had spent the year at his winery, and we repeated the ritual. As we swished the wine around in our mouths, we all looked at each other quizzically.
“I’ll be darned,” I said after I turned and sprayed the cave floor behind me with the inky red wine. “It’s different.”
Everyone murmured agreement. The second wine didn’t taste quite as deep and ripe as the first. The difference was slight, but noticeable.
Now, I hear everyone saying, “But —” The control wine bounced across the valley in the cab of Randy’s pickup, it wasn’t at the same temperature as the cave-aged wine, which only moved about five feet, yadda yadda. We couldn’t expect it to taste the same. But really? It was the same wine, after all.
This was by no means a rigorous scientific experiment to verify the value of temperature-controlled wine storage. This was a passion project by two wine lovers who happened to own a cave. And since everyone agreed there was a difference, it’s at least a superficial reason to say, “Hey honey, I think we should upgrade our storage.” Man cave protocol, after all.
After we made our way out of the caverns, Rod had us pose before the green screen for the obligatory tourist photo. Randy gave me both opened bottles to take home.
I took a detour for a burger at Spelunkers in Front Royal2 before heading home. That night, I tried both wines with my wife, who agreed the cave-aged wine tasted slightly better, deeper.
By the next night, having left the bottles at room temperature with the corks stuck in, I couldn’t tell the difference. The memory lingered of thousands of years of geology, one of the most enjoyable days I’ve ever spent tasting wine, and the experience of sharing my childhood with my daughter when I brought her to Luray Caverns so many years ago.
That was special enough.
Luray Caverns Underground 2023, a cave-aged red wine, is now available for sale at the Luray Caverns gift shop for $40.
Me waiting for that Beltway construction to wrap up. Cave-aged, but not so well.
Spelunkers is worth the hype!
How fun is that! Bravo Randy, always with an eye to expanding how we can vinify Virginia.