Luca Paschina Named Wine Industry Person of the Year

June 17, 2002
Contact: Pamela Jewell
Phone: 804-786-0481
pjewell@vdacs.state.va.us

Richmond, Virginia – Luca Paschina, general manager and winemaker for Barboursville Vineyards, has received the prestigious Virginia Wine Industry Person Of the Year Award from the Virginia Winegrowers Advisory Board. Paschina was presented the award at the Virginia Wine Honors, held June 17 at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond.

“It’s very rewarding to receive this award. I believe very much in the future of Virginia wines,” said Paschina. “The business of wine requires a lot of sacrifice. We are farmers in a way, and the cycle of business is very complex – growing grapes, making wine, marketing. For people who have worked from A-Z as I have done, this recognition is payback for all the time and work for what we do.”

The Wine Industry Person Of the Year award is given to the person in the industry who is selected by his peers to have made significant contributions to the Virginia wine industry. As winemaker for Barboursville Vineyards, one of Virginia’s oldest and largest wineries, Paschina sets the standard for excellence in winemaking in Virginia. He promotes unity in the Virginia wine industry and is always ready to share his expertise in grape growing and winemaking with new growers and more experienced Virginia winemakers as well.

“We really need to have coalition in this industry. That’s how I am in life – I want to help people”, Paschina commented. “ We are getting high levels of Virginia wines because of dedicated people. The only way to do it is as a whole rather than a single.”

As a producer of award-winning Virginia wines, Paschina said it always good to have Virginia wines outscoring international producers in California competitions. “In several instances, Barboursville as well as several other Virginia wineries have outscored California producers in California,” said Paschina. He remarked that this is the best reassurance that we are producing wine to a high level – a clear confirmation of the quality Virginia has been able to reach with its wines.

In order to make great wine Paschina said, you must be able to understand growing certain grapes. “We have to make wine according to what the climate allows to us to do”, he said.
Some winemakers want to make a French or California-style wine, but he believes there is a Virginia-style of winemaking.

For the future, Paschina will be placing more emphasis on the importance of working together with the culinary world focusing on food and wine pairing, at restaurants and at the winery. He would like to see more Virginia wine industry people following that path and making Virginia a great food center. In December, Barboursville and its flagship restaurant Palladio will be preparing the annual Christmas dinner for the James Beard Foundation in New York – a four-course dinner featuring four Barboursville wines. Paschina will be introducing Barboursville and Virginia wine to the food center of New York for the first time.

Paschina grew up in Italy in a family of winemakers. In his early teens he began to get more involved in winemaking and the appreciation of fine wine. He graduated in 1981 with a degree in winemaking from Umberto Primo in Alba. From 1981 to 1990 he worked for a large corporation in all different aspects of the wine industry from grape growing to winemaking to wine sales. In 1990, Paschina began working as a consultant. Originally, Paschina was going to spend only two months in Virginia working as a consultant at Barboursville, but he was intrigued by the challenge that was here and ending up staying.

First awarded in 1993, the Wine Industry Person Of the Year award has previously gone to Archie Smith, III, Bruce Zoecklein, Felicia Warburg Rogan, Gabriele Rausse, Patrick Duffeler, Tony Wolf, Gordon Murchie, Lucie Morton Garrett and Roy Williams.