Drinks with Lacey Huber & Jeremy Topper

Feelin' spirited?!?! Join Ernie Kyger, Van Metre's Lifestyle Expert, as he talks wine and craft beer with Lacey Huber of Stone Tower Winery and Jeremy Topper of Fosters in Chantilly. So grab a drink and sip your way to a relaxing afternoon.

• Stone Tower sits on 300 hundred acres and has about 85 acres planted as vineyards; ultimately, they plan to grow grapes on approximately 100 acres in total. This year alone, they'll produce close to 12,000 cases of wines from the estate, equating to about 200 tons of fruit.

• Virginia has been growing grapes for over 400 years, but only in the past 20 to 30 years have Virginia farmers figured out best practices for growing grapes here in this climate.

• Growing seasons in Virginia can be ideal. Warm days and warm nights lead to even ripening. A wide variety of grapes are grown in this climate, as well. With the right amount of rain to keep the vines happy and well-drained soil, the crop grows well.

Fosters

• Fosters features craft beer, which focuses on flavors and nuances and is not mass-produced. 

• Quality is king in the craft beer industry, and we see small local breweries holding their own.

• Whether or not something is a craft beer is based on how many barrels they produce. Ultimately, this is the difference between a craft brewery, a microbrewery, a nanobrewery and a macro brewery. Examples of macro breweries are Budweiser and Miller Lite. Essentially, everybody started as a craft beer at one time.

• In 2011, there were probably 2,500 breweries. Now there's about 8,000.

• There's Ornery beer company located in Gainesville. A couple of others in Northern Virginia include Ocelot Brewing Company and Solace. Our friends from Fair Winds try to get their beer in here as much as possible; they're not too far away, in Lorton. Then out of Richmond, Väsen—they're a newcomer over the past two years and they're brewing great beer. From Charlottesville, Three Notch'd turns out fantastic beer.