Located in Earlysville, about 10 miles northwest of Charlottesville. Family-owned by Candice and Aaron Hark. The Harks bought the initial 70 acres of open grazing land in 2015, and opened for business in December 2019. Through a wine class at Piedmont Valley Community College, Aaron Hark met industry veteran Jake Busching, who signed on as a grower, winemaker and general consultant. Busching has worked with Jefferson Vineyards, Keswick Vineyards, Horton, Pollak, Grace Estate, and with Michael Shaps. Busching is also using the Hark production facility as a base from which to bottle his own line of Jake Busching Wines.
Wine. One of the Top 50 wineries in Virginia. Two vintages of Hark’s Petit Manseng, the 2019 and 2021, were both awarded gold medals at the 2023 Virginia Governor’s Cup state-wide wine tasting competition. Six of their wines also received silver medals at the event: the 2019 Cabernet Franc Reserve, Merlot, Petit Verdot, Chardonnay and “Spark,” and the 2021 Pinot Gris. The 2021 Chardonnay was awarded a bronze medal. Eight Hark wines received silver medals at the 2022 Governor’s Cup competition. At the nation-wide San Francisco Chronicle wine competition in 2023, the Hark 2021 Petit Manseng and Pinot Grigio both received silver medals. Their 2019 vintage Merlot was awarded a gold medal at the 2022 Monticello Cup, a competition among Monticello area wineries, while their 2017 Cabernet franc received a silver medal at the same event. The “classic packaging” 2017 Chardonnay took home a prestigious “Best in Class” award back at the 2020 San Francisco Wine Chronicle national wine competition.
Setting. The recently completed tasting room at Hark provides great views over both the vineyards and the winery’s production facility. Family-friendly.
Stories. Religion in early Virginia – Buck Mountain Episcopal Church. Anglicanism came to Virginia with the first settlers of Jamestown, and was designated as the official religion of Virginia Colony in 1619. The early colonial Anglican church faced many challenges, foremost of which was a constant shortage of ministers. With no bishops in the colonies, only new arrivals ordained in England, or colonists who made a round-trip to England and back, were available to serve. Lay readers and vestries organized by the local legislature assumed far greater importance in Virginia than they had in England. In 1684, James Baird arrived as empowered commissary of the Bishop of London and, serving for 58 years, helped stabilize many aspects of the young Virginia church. Anglicanism remained the denomination for an overwhelming majority of Virginians until the Great Awakening of the 1740s. One of the rare surviving example of the simple wooden Anglican parish churches scattered through Virginia in the colonial period is Buck Mountain Episcopal Church, a historic Episcopal church on VA 743 in Earlysville, where Hark Vineyards is located. It is considered one of the finest surviving examples of rural Virginia Greek Revival churches.