A Long and Winding Road
In 1978, the Peple family purchased a a farm in central Virginia where they planted one of the earliest commercial vineyards in the state and later founded Grayhaven Winery, the 22nd licensed winery in Virginia.
The Second Generation
In 2002, Max Peple-Abrams and Deon Abrams, a native of Cape Town, South Africa, take the helm at Grayhaven, establishing South Africa’s signature grape Pinotage in the vineyards in the early 2000’s.
The Adventure Continues
From 2002 through 2019, the winery developed it’s niche, focusing on it’s core values:
Values
To be good stewards of the land, creating healthy soil for future generations to farm on and preserve the natural habitat of forest and streams as the urban sprawl moves closer.
Values
To grow a diversified vineyard, orchard and farm gardens, free of Glyphosate and other harmful chemicals with a focus on quality over quantity.
Values
To make good wine, cider and food that won’t be duplicated by others because of the quality, variety and uniqueness of the core ingredients and the creativity and techniques used in transforming those elements into art.
Values
To provide and environment full of wonder, magic, laughter and natural beauty where people can experience meaningful, memorable connections with each other, other visitors and with our staff.
Values
To cultivate a unique and innovative work environment where staff have flexibility and are supported in achieving life goals and future career aspirations. To recruit good people with all kinds of backgrounds, experiences, achievements, skills and stories.
Values
To connect people who live in an increasingly concrete world to the magic of wild things – The bees dancing on the blue-tipped agastache, the rabbit scurrying to their burrows at dusk, the Arabian horse running with the wind, the vine in all its seasons, with all it’s stories.
Values
To curate events that bring people and cultures together. To use wine, food, music, craft and art as tools to unite and inspire.
Today
Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did, only “backwards and in high heels.” And that’s how it feels to be a small winery in the blustery, frost, storm and hurricaine-prone corner of the ‘what’s possible in the world of growing good wine grapes’ world. You have to work harder, be more creative, more resilient, more stubborn, and resoursful. You have to pivot when the weather turns, the industry changes or a pandemic rolls through. You have to come out the other end of the storm better off than how you went into it. And that’s just what we did.