The Dog and Oyster Micro-Vineyard in Irvington, Va., near where the Rappahannock River feeds into the Chesapeake, was established ten years ago to produce bracing white wines that pair expressly with oysters. “Growing grapes on land next to the water where oysters were grown—the terroir of our grapes matches perfectly with the merroir of the oysters,” says Dudley Patteson, the micro-vineyard’s co-owner with his wife, Peggy “The taste of the grape and the wine is the same as the oyster.”
Their wines are fittingly called Oyster White, a chardonel (a late ripening, white-wine hybrid grape), and Pearl, made from vidal blanc. “They are dry white wines,” Patteson says. “If you take a sip of dry white wine and put an oyster in your mouth after, the flavors of the oyster pops because of the way the wine coats your palate, and how your palate reacts to the sweetness or salinity of a given oyster.”
