Va. wines take a shot at filling British glasses

By Jim Raper

I once spent an afternoon shopping for wine in Kensington, London, and was amazed by the wide selection available at the three or four shops I visited. I saw wines I'd never heard of, much less tasted. The United Kingdom, after all, leads the world in wine imports: roughly 1.6 billion bottles a year.

That visit to Kensington was a decade or so ago, and even though I would have been pleased to take a Virginia wine to my dinner hosts, I didn't expect to find one, and, indeed, I didn't.

Today, however, if I ventured into the Whole Foods Market in Kensington, I would see a section of shelves labeled "Virginia, U.S.A." Fifteen different Virginia wines are offered.

You want a Williamsburg Winery 2008 Acte 12 Chardonnay? Nineteen pounds, please. Or how about the 2007 Bordeaux-style red blend from John Kent Cooke's Boxwood Winery in Northern Virginia? That will set you back 25 pounds.

The man behind this export foothold for Virginia wines is Christopher Parker, an Englishman himself, but one whose computer software business brought him to Virginia two decades ago. Now retired from his first career, he has for the past two years been the entrepreneur behind New Horizon Wine, a company devoted to promoting and selling Virginia wine abroad, beginning with the U.K.

Parker won't divulge sales figures, but he says he has placed Virginia wine not only with the market in Ken-sington, but also with Oxford Wine Co. in Standlake, Oxfordshire; Hercules Wine Warehouse in Faversham, Kent; and The Good Wine Shop in Kew.

Parker says Virginia wines are ready to take off in his homeland, much as New Zealand wines did 30 years ago. Virginia wines, he adds, have the advantage of being something new to U.K. consumers, but also familiar in a way. Why? Because Virginia wines are made in a European style emphasizing complexity over the raw power of many New World wines. Because the British are familiar with the white viognier and red petit verdot, of which Virginia winemakers make great use. And because of the historical connections between Virginia and the U.K.

Parker joined Gov. Bob McDonnell and his wife when they led the Virginia trade mission that visited England in July. Virginia winery owners - who paid their own way to join the mission - provided a tasting of their wines and heard London-based wine writer Oz Clarke describe the state as an exciting new wine region, Parker said.

He expects sales of Virginia wine here and throughout the United States to grow, Parker added, "through international recognition such as this of the quality of Virginia wines."

Jim Raper, humstew@cox.net