King Family Vineyards
- King Family Vineyards is located in the village of Crozet, Virginia, in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains 15-20 minutes west of Charlottesville. David and Ellen King purchased the farm in 1996, after relocating from Texas. The idea of winemaking arose when someone asked to lease part of their land for a vineyard; the family decided to make a go of it themselves and opened the winery in 2002. They have become one of the most successful wineries in the state.
- Wine: Top Tier. We have King Family Vineyards as one of the Top 4 wineries in Virginia. King wines won a nearly unprecedented (outside of Michael Shaps) seven gold medals at the 2023 Virginia Governor’s Cup state-wide wine competition: for their 2017 & 2019 vintage Meritage, 2019 Petit Verdot, small-batch Viognier and Brut Rosé, and 2021 vintage Viognier and Mountain Plains Rosé. The 2021 vintage Cabernet Franc and Chardonnay received silver medals. At the 2022 Virginia Governor’s Cup competition, five King Family wines had won gold medals: the 2019 Petit Verdot, Sauvignon Blanc and Mountain Plains Red, and the 2020 Viognier and Chardonnay. Two King wines, a Mountain Plains Red and a Meritage, had been voted among the top 12 wines in Virginia back in 2019 (as part of the “Governor’s Case”). Interestingly, after all the success at the state level, King only managed three silver medals at the 2022 Monticello Cup, featuring only Charlottesville area wineries – for their 2020 Chardonnay and 2019 Meritage and Mountain Plains Red. Three stars in Hugh Johnson’s authoritative 2020 wine guide. The winemaker is Matthieu Finot from the Rhone area of France.
- Setting: Two stars. Named as one of Virginia’s 10 Most Beautiful Wineries. From the terrace, guests overlook the beautiful and vast fields of grape vines. This family oriented business makes guests feel welcomed and warm from the moment they arrive. Unlike most other wineries and vineyards, the King Family Vineyard hosts polo matches on their field for the enjoyment of guests. In the colder months, they have a fireplace and cozy spots for guests to warm up. Fans of quality wine, stunning landscapes, and exciting sports absolutely cannot miss King Family Vineyards. Beautiful views in multiple directions. Cheese, meat and bread available for purchase.
- Stories: One star. Before Jamestown: Monacan Indian towns in Virginia. Native Americans in Virginia, at the time of European arrival, were mostly part of three distinct linguistic and cultural groups. One of these groups were Siouan speakers, the easternmost of the Sioux, and the main tribe of this group were the Monacans. The Monacans are known to have had five main towns in present-day Virginia. King is probably the closest vineyard to one of these villages, Monasukapanough. Monasukapanough, which was shown on John Smith’s 1612 Map of Virginia, was located on a bend of the South Fork of the Rivanna River. The site was where Thomas Jefferson identified and excavated an Indian burial mound in the early 19th century. Jefferson reported that as a child, he saw a group of Native Americans go six miles out of their way to visit a mound near Charlottesville. In later life he investigated, and found over a hundred skeletons in the burial mound, and while his methods left much to be desired by the standards of modern archaeology, his was the first scientific excavation in the country of any of these important Native American monuments. The mound has since been eroded or plowed away, as has been the case for many of these mounds. Part of the ancient village was on what is now the South Fork Soccer Park. The Monacans were enemies of the Powhatan tribe to the East. Their territory, which is said to go back 10,000 years, was first explored by Christopher Newport. The tribe, now numbering about 2,000 members, received federal recognition as a tribe only in January 2018.