Mattapony Reserve is one of Virginia’s newest wineries, opening in late 2022 on the Mattaponi Indian Reservation on the banks of the Mattaponi River east of Richmond. This wasn’t on my original itinerary, but I had some free time so I scooted over to try it out.

Since there isn’t a vineyard, the tasting building isn’t obvious at a glance. The winery is located at the end of a long circular road (maybe I could have taken a right instead of a left and sped up my journey, but I didn’t know). I passed a number of family homes, a church, and the Mini Ha-Ha Educational Trading Post (I never thought I’d see a sign like that, but there it was!). But the GPS was right on, and as soon as a saw a big parking I figured that was the place.

The entire experience has a very mom-and-pop vibe to it. It helped that Ginger and Lonnie Custalow, the owners/winemakers were behind the counter. Ginger poured while telling me their backstory.

They were home winemakers for a while, finally making their first commercial vintage in 2020. They named the winery ‘Mattapony’, which is an older spelling of the local tribe. There’s a separate Mattaponi winery as well, although the two couldn’t be more different.

All of Mattapony’s fruit is from Virginia, and the wine is made via ‘natural winemaking’. This is a bit of an open-ended term, since there is no technical definition of ‘natural wine’. But generally speaking it means limited intervention, low chemical spraying, and (in their case) no added sulfites.

While there isn’t a lot of indoor seating it has something I think is even better; a covered patio next to the river. I was told that if you watch long enough you might even see some bald eagles swooping down. No eagles were seen when I was there, but the view was well worth the visit.

Nine wines were available during my visit; a pair of Nortons, a pair of Petit Verdots, a Pinot Grigio rose’, a 2021 Chardonel, a 2020 Chardonnay, DeChaunac, and a red blend called “Two Rivers”.

I got to try them all, with my favorites being the rose’, Chardonnay, and DeChaunac (if only because I see it so rarely). The prevalence of hybrids is very common in natural winemaking.

The Chardonnay was definitely my favorite. It was almost an orange wine; very dark hue to it. Notes of pineapple and coconut abound.

The Pinot Grigio rose’ was nicely done; lots of peach notes. I almost got a glass, but opted for the Chardonnay instead.

That DeChaunac was damn interesting. It’s a French-American hybrid that was one of the first created in the wake of phylloxera. I found it was very acidic and tart. I later found they got the fruit from Rockbridge.

If you like smoky reds; this is your place. The 2021 Norton and 2020 PV were both was lighter than I expected. Did it have something with the winemaking style? I forgot to ask.

It may be further out than many wineries, but there’s something to be said about kicking back on the porch and hoping to see eagles fly-by.