Purcellville, Virginia

Maggie Malick Wine Cave’s 215-acre property extends up Short Hill Mountain, which is part of the Blue Ridge Mountain range. But its soil is composed of soft shale that won’t support a cave in its mountain side.  So, we built one!
Our Wine Cave is a versatile space that serves as our tasting room, as well as where we ferment, store, blend and bottle Maggie’s award-winning wine.

This wine cave is covered with 4 feet of earth and grass is growing on the roof. This helps the wine cave maintain a constant temperature and reduce energy costs. The Wine Cave has a lower carbon foot print than a traditional above ground winery. The Wine Cave serves as both the tasting room and the production facility.

The use of subterranean structures to store wine dates back to ancient Rome.  Today, the wine industry is embracing the eco-friendly benefits of wine caves.  Whether natural or man-made, caves have the ideal conditions for storing and aging wine.  Constant temperature and humidity levels are critical to winemakers.  Wine caves naturally create a prime environment without the need for complex electrical humidity and temperature control systems. Reduced energy consumption and barrel evaporation offers a substantial increase in yield.  Gravity flow winemaking is a practice that is becoming well recognized by wine makers and vino fanatics. The process in gravity flow (also known as gravity fed) winemaking, allows for the wine to stream from winery levels. Unlike above ground traditional cellars there is no use of pumps or mechanical force, enabling the wine to gently extract colour, flavour and tannin.  For a structure like this, it would be very easy to place a fermentation/crush pad on the green roof.  The must would then be gravity fed into the cave.

“The ability to attract wine enthusiasts to cave-aged wines and to tour wine cellars is a bonus to marketing the modern wine industry.”-Calwineries

Join us at the Wine Cave for wine tastings, live music, and special events.