About this episode

The episode features a discussion about Pollak Vineyards, its history, and its significance in Virginia's wine industry.

Pollak Vineyards is a small family-owned winery founded in 2003 when Margo and David Pollak bought a farm west of Charlottesville, Virginia. David's experience in wine was pretty extensive – he worked in the 1970s in Sonoma's Russian River Valley and was a founding partner and investor in one of Napa Valley's first Carneros wineries, Bouchaine Vineyards. Years later, when he thought about retirement from the corporate world, he saw huge potential in Virginia and he and Margo took the chance to help shape this emerging region. Photo: Pollak Vineyards. Credit: https://www.pollakvineyards.com In this show, I host Ryan Pollak Gardner, Dave and Margo's daughter and their successor, and Benoit Pineau, the long time winemaker. We discuss the story of Pollak , the terroir of their site, and what makes their wine so much better than so many others in Virginia. For me, Pollak is among the Grand Cru of Virginia – the top of the top. Their wines are stunning, their property is beautiful, and they are doing all the right things to showcase how incredible the wines of VA can be. And I'm not alone: in 2025, Pollak won five gold medals in the VA Governor's Cup Competition, more than any other…

People in this episode

Host: Elizabeth Schneider

Guests: Ryan Pollak Gardner, Benoit Pineau

Topics covered

• Virginia wine
• family-owned winery
• winemaking process
• Pollak Vineyards
• terroir
• wine competition
• emerging wine regions

Keywords

• Pollak Vineyards
• Virginia wine
• winemaker
• family winery
• gold medals
• wine competition
• terroir

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Pollak Vineyards

Places: Virginia, Charlottesville, Napa Valley, Sonoma's Russian River Valley

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