Richard Obiso, one of the owners of Whitebarrel Winery, adjusts the pump line during last week’s bottling. More than 2,200 cases were bottled.
Marty Gordon
On a chill and rainy morning last week, volunteers and staffers gathered in the driveway of Whitebarrel Winery, its pergola’d blue tasting house and rich, tidy vine rows still black against the cold green fields, to bottle the last year’s vintage. Owner Richard Obiso led the operation as a mobile bottling machine sat in the parking lot on a tractor-trailer.
“This bottling machine goes to wineries throughout the southeast. It’s more economical for small wineries like us instead of buying our own bottling line,” he said to the crowd.
Over the next two days, the group bottled about 2,200 cases with 12 bottles in a case, 26,0000.
Using volunteers and mobile bottling are just two ways Obiso is leveraging an ecology of personal resources: money, training in microbiology and a real interest in wine, to raise 17-acres of grapes that may become a Virginia-wide enterprise.
“We typically bottle two times a year. There is almost always a spring–March or April bottling– and a summer bottling in August. We typically bottle between 1,800 – 2,500 cases each time. We also will ‘hand-bottle’ our specialty wines once per year – that’s just a few hundred cases,” Obiso said.
A successful entrepreneur, Obiso has started and managed a string of successful companies from the ground up. Having earned a PhD in microbiology and biochemistry from Virginia Tech with a background in product development of bacterial diagnostics, he left the corporate world of Washington biotech in 2006, became a biodefense consultant and started the winery.
At Whiebarrel, he oversees everything from winemaking and marketing to distribution and sales.
Obiso also splits his time with Avila Scientific, an international biotech firm, where he is owner and managing director, and, the Whitebarrel Foundation, where he is the executive director. He is also a member of the board of directors of the Virginia Winery Association.
Things have changed since those early years, when the winery started as Eclipse, changing the name to Attimo. Then, as it does, life affected Obiso as a divorce brought him to a new fork in the road.
“My new partner, and my best friend, Tess, and I decided we were going to go ‘all in’ and be intentional about growing the winery into a premier, regional winery. We hired an excellent international marketing company, out of the UK, called Rusty Monkey, and, together, we came up with a brand that not only fit the Appalachian roots of the New River Valley, but also mixed modern flair with a vintage look,” he said. In October of 2015, they re-launched the winery as Whitebarrel, or WB. Since that rebranding, they’ve flourished.
“I am not going to say that we’ve doubled in size – but nearly so. We’ve had quite a few bumps in the road over the last few years, which really knocked the wind out of our sails. But we have an excellent team and are now on a very intentional track to focus on our business operations, staffing, and growth,” Obiso said.
He expects the winery to continue to grow organically, topping out at about 8,000 cases per year. He doesn’t want to get much bigger than that because he worries WB will become something different than he intended.
“Much of our future growth will be focused on distribution around Virginia. We do already sell wine to about 40 other states–individuals, not companies. We do hope to open at least two more Whitebarrel outlets in the next few years – when the business is ready for them,” he said.
They are still producing all of our Whitebarrel branded varietals: Chardonnay, Vidal blanc, Seyval blanc, Cabernet franc, and Chambourcin, but their newest addition is Petit Manseng that was first harvest was 2017, and Saperavi, whose first harvest is anticipated this year.
“We have been making a lot of blends over the years, and we will be keeping the very popular ones: BIN # 704, BIN # 997, and BIN # 260. Our goal is to make a wine that anyone can sip.
Traditional, but innovative, Whitebarrel plans to develop new wine types.
“In 2019, you can expect to see our lavender-infused Seyval blanc, and our new Hopped-rose blend (think beer). In 2020, we will be offering two types of vermouth. We call one “Spring-summer,” which is a citrus-herbed infused white wine and one “Rosa fall/winter,” which is infused with traditional blend of herbs,” Obiso said.
But, in the midst of this success and optimism, WB has fought an uphill battle in finding an appropriate work force, thus a reason to ask for volunteers to help with last week’s bottling, finding an appropriate work force.
“Our biggest challenge in this area is finding skilled workers. A winery is a farm, with very special needs that hire agriculture and horticulture majors. We are also a highly regulated business, which hires people with compliance and quality assurance backgrounds, and we are a manufacturer and a tasting room/bar with servers and managers. We are always looking for skilled workers who are looking for regular full-time work,” Obiso said.
WB is a conglomeration of businesses.
One division is called Avila Scientific (an international public health company). Another is called Avila Herbals (a farm who specializes in herbs and industrial hemp). WB is now a registered hemp grower and processor in Virginia, one of the first here in the New River Valley.
Another division is the Whitebarrel Trading Post, which just started, specializing on all sorts of retail products, branded products and specialty retail items. Lastly, they have introduced the newest part of the countryside–Blackbarrel brewery, a nano-farm brewery.
The latter is expected to open in the near future across the parking lot from the current WB winery and tasting room.
Blackbarrel, itself, has been around for over a year as the ownership is perfecting the growing all of its own barley and hops. Obiso is excited about the brewery venture, but also their own “wine lab” in downtown Blacksburg.
The concept of the wine bar was introduced in 2017 and not only carries Whitebarrel-branded wines, but wines from throughout the Commonwealth.
“Right now, we have 40 other partner wineries, showcasing one or two wines at the bar. The wine bar has been a good success in Blacksburg, and we’ve been working on introducing another Whitebarrel in northern Virginia,” Obiso concluded.
Still on the horizon are plans for satellite wine and tapa bars in Richmond and Northern Virginia, plus a proposed “wine truck”, which would provide not only WB wine, but others from throughout the Commonwealth.
Whitebarrel is one of several Virginia wineries slated to be at the Blacksburg Fork and Cork, wine, food and art extravaganza this weekend at the Virginia Tech Corporate Research Center.
