Winery Tour: Attimo

Attimo Winery

Tasting Room.

Pruned Vines

Inside the tasting room.

 Owned by Rik and Melissa Obiso, both former virginia tech students, Attimo is a brand new vineyard and winery located in Christiansburg, Virginia.  The Obiso’s have always dreamed of owning their own winery, but never expected the dream to come true. As stated in their biography, “over the past 5 years, Attimo has grown from a small patch of “test vines” to a large vineyard and tasting room.  Vines have been planted every year, beginning in 2007, and continuing until 2011, with many of our vines bearing fruit in 2010 & 2011.  There are now over 10,000 vines on the property & 1,200 raspberry and blackberry plants.” (http://www.attimowinery.com/index_files/Page411.htm) Attimo is now the most awarded winery in Virginia and is the only vineyard on the east coast that grows the Georgian Saperavi grape. They have USDA permits for two different vines from New York and California which are pruned in the winter, so unfortunately we did not see any fresh vines.

Attimo means “in the moment” in Italian and the winery sets their mission based on that saying. They are “dedicated to celebrating the everyday moments of life” and name all of their wines after certain moments in time. The wines we tried are below.

Tasting brochure!

Attimo uses the basement of their home on the vineyard property, and place in Charlottesville to make their wine. They use a variety of materials for aging depending on “style” of the wine. For example, their sweeter wines are fermented and aged in only stainless steel, but steel or oak depends on style such as French style, Italian style, Georgian style, Eastern European style, etc. Their bottling takes place either on their property on specified day when a truck with the correct materials is there, or in a facility in Charlottesville which is shared with other wineries. Not only are they the most awarded winery in Virginia, but they are also a totally green winery. They use all recycled corks, recycle all of their glass, compost all food scraps, and their tasting room is a passive solar building. A passive solar building  consists of windows, walls, and floors that are made to collect, store, and distribute solar energy as heat in the winter and reject solar heat in the summer.

Sweet Berry Sunset wine rimmed with chocolate!

Cheers.

Attimo only sells its wines for purchase at the vineyard, but distributes it to some restaurants in Blacksurg, Radford, and Roanoke including Zeppolis! Honestly, best wine I have tasted all semester!