Three Fox Vineyards
Another of the Delaplane wineries, north of Interstate 66 in western Fauquier County. Started by Holli and Jon Todhunter in 2003. Purchased in July 2020 by Tim and Emily Faltemier, who have added a brewery to the property. The new owners have retained the winery’s focus on Italian grapes and wine styles.
Wine. Tier II. Wide range of both whites and reds. Italian focus to wines, including Pinot Grigio, Sangiovese and Nebbiolo. Mixed online review opinions. The winery last entered the Virginia Governor’s Cup competition in 2018 and received bronze medals for their Nebbiolo and Sangiovese.
Setting. One star. Relatively small winery. Beautiful views over the vineyards towards the Blue Ridge. Spacious grounds but not much shade.
Stories. Land use: the internet vs the vine. Coming to Three Fox Vineyards from I-66, you’ll cross the there-small stream named Goose Creek. Goose Creek, small as it may look here, could rightfully be called the Rhone or the Moselle of Virginia, as so many vineyards are located on or near its banks. At 54 miles long, Goose Creek is a bit shorter than either the Rhone or the Moselle, but then no comparison is ever perfect. The Creek rises near Linden, at Manassas Gap in the Blue Ridge, and empties into the Potomac River just above the Lansdowne Resort. In the 1840s and 1850s it had a series of locks on its downstream section to enable navigation to some Loudoun County mills, but these were put out of business by the arrival of the W&OD railroad. Goose Creek today is a scenic part of Northern Virginia and Loudoun wine country – and its also at the center of a battle over land use in Loudoun – let’s call it “The Battle of the Bottle”. Southeastern Loudoun County has no wineries, but it does have data centers. In fact it has so many data centers (75 or so) that Loudoun is sometimes called the Internet Capital of the World, and an estimated 50-70% of the world’s internet traffic is routed through these centers. The current battle is over a proposal to build another data center, but this time not in the southeast part of the County designated for commercial development – this time on Goose Creek, in the part of the County designated a “transition zone”, between the commercial east and the western part of Loudoun reserved for an agricultural-based economy. The Loudoun County Board estimates the new data center, sponsored by Compass Datacenters, could bring over $20 million annually in taxes. The Board approved the new center in January 2018, in spite of heated protests from residents. Given how these controversies tend to go, we likely have not heard the last of the Battle of the Bottle.