We’re in the news and on the radio!

Thank you, Jeff Katz Show and WRVA, for taking the interest and time to interview us about our winery!

We look forward to seeing you again at Castle Glen Winery again soon.

Listen to the Audio!

Owner and operator of Castle Glen wine, Ed Cowdrey, takes time to talk with The Jeff Katz Show on WRVA, Richmond. Have a listen!

Castle Glen Winery on the jeff katz show - Jeff katz himself

Read the transcript:

Read the audio transcript of the interview between WRVA’s, Jeff Katz and Castle Glen Winery‘s owner, Ed Cowdrey.

(Transcript has minor edits for readability.)

[Audio Starts]

Last night, here, in, uh, our neck of the woods, we had our little wine club dinner. We all get together and, uh, enjoy some company, bring food and, well you know, a couple of glasses of wine and talk about it and just have a great time.

[Interview Starts]

Now, we’re lucky, we really are. We’ve got a lot of really wonderful wineries in our area. People don’t realize it and Castle Glen Winery is one of them!

I’m happy to say that Ed Cowdrey, who is the man behind Castle Glen.

Taking a couple of moments to join us because it’s just one of those places that Heidi and I really like.

We thought we would get Ed on to talk a little bit about some of the attractions. Hey Ed, Thanks for Joining us!

Jeff Katz:
Castle Glen Winery on the jeff katz show - Jeff katz himself
Jeff Katz:
Castle Glen Winery on the jeff katz show - Jeff katz himself
Ed Cowdrey:
Castle Glen Winery Owner in the bubble bar wine toast
[On the Phone]

Hey Jeff! Thanks for having us, we’re big fans of yours. We listen to you almost every day.

Jeff Katz:
Castle Glen Winery on the jeff katz show - Jeff katz himself

Oh, well thank you so much. That’s very kind!

For folks that are hearing this, let’s be honest, there’s a lot of folks going, “What? Wineries? Here?”

Let’s dispel everybody of the, of the, uh, falsehood that we don’t have good wine in Virginia!

We have great wine here in Virginia!

Jeff Katz:
Castle Glen Winery on the jeff katz show - Jeff katz himself

Oh, well thank you so much. That’s very kind! For folks that are hearing this, let’s be honest, there’s a lot of folks going, “What? Wineries? Here?” – Let’s dispel everybody of the, of the, uh, falsehood that we don’t have good wine in Virginia. We have great wine here in Virginia.

Ed Cowdrey:
Castle Glen Winery Owner in the bubble bar whoah - blog conversation icon

We have fantastic wine in Virginia!

In fact, there are over 300 wineries in Virginia, currently.

Wow, all right. So, what’s the story behind Castle Glen? How did you get involved in this?

Jeff Katz:
Castle Glen Winery on the jeff katz show - Jeff katz himself
Jeff Katz:
Castle Glen Winery on the jeff katz show - Jeff katz himself
Ed Cowdrey:
Castle Glen Winery Owner in the bubble bar explaining - blog conversation icon

Ya, so, I started making wine in my kitchen about thirty years ago kind of as a hobby and it just kind of grew out of control, Jeff!

We opened Castle Glen Winery about six years ago and, um, we’ve got a nice 2600 square foot tasting room, where people can come and sample our wines and a lot of the other things we offer and, you know, enjoy a nice time.

Jeff Katz:
Castle Glen Winery on the jeff katz show - Jeff katz himself

[Tongue-in-cheek]

So, can you reassure people that tasting wine does not have to be some… some bizarre trip into the world of snobbery?

Jeff Katz:
Castle Glen Winery on the jeff katz show - Jeff katz himself
Ed Cowdrey:
Castle Glen Winery Owner in the barn smiling
[Ed Laughs]

Ya, in fact, we strive really hard at Castle Glen Winery to make it very informal, very family friendly.

In fact, we are just getting ready to launch juice tastings for kids, so that they don’t feel left out when mom and dad or Grandma and Grandpa bring them in to do a wine tasting.

We’re also extremely dog friendly!

You can bring dogs right in the tasting room – keep them on a leash, of course – and if you come on Friday, we offer the Fido-Friday-Special which is where you get 10% off!

I love that! I LOVE that!

What about the conditions? Again, there’s sort of this thousand foot view that says, “Well, grapes for wine grows in France, they grow in Italy, some in Spain.. but not around here!”

But you guys absolutely… you talk about 300 different wineries in Virginia, this is such rich, fertile soil for wine [isn’t it]?

Jeff Katz:
Castle Glen Winery on the jeff katz show - Jeff katz himself
Jeff Katz:
Castle Glen Winery on the jeff katz show - Jeff katz himself
Ed Cowdrey:
Castle Glen Winery Owner in the bubble bar smiling - blog conversation icon

It is!

In fact, if you just do a little bit of reading, you can go back and see that Thomas Jefferson actually predicted that Virginia would be a major power in the wine industry

because its growing conditions were so similar to what he found when he was the ambassador in France.

Wow! Okay, now I’ve got to ask you a few more questions.

I’ve got folks, again, who are a little put off by wine. Ed Cowdrey is with us, the man behind Castle Glen Winery. The owner, the operator.

Are you officially the vintner? Or have you hired somebody for that post?

Jeff Katz:
Castle Glen Winery on the jeff katz show - Jeff katz himself
Jeff Katz:
Castle Glen Winery on the jeff katz show - Jeff katz himself
Ed Cowdrey:
Castle Glen Winery Owner in the bubble bar whoah - blog conversation icon

Ya, so, we’ve got some folks helping us in a number of different capacities, but I am still actually the main winemaker.

Jeff, we make 10 different wines now, plus our seasonal Christmas wine. So, we’ve got reds, whites, rose, dry wine, sweet wine – we even have wine slushies. So we’ve got something for everybody.

You know, it was the wine slushies that turned us on to you guys in the first place.

Because Heidi and I were so blown away, just by the idea of wine slushies, so.. was that you? Was that you after a really long day of tasting the failures and said,

“HEY! LISTEN TO THIS! Wine. Slushies.”?

Jeff Katz:
Castle Glen Winery on the jeff katz show - Jeff katz himself
Ed Cowdrey:
Castle Glen Winery Owner in the bubble bar wine toast
[Ed Laughs]

Ya! The wine slushies have been an incredible success!

In fact, we actually take wine slushie machines with us when we do wine festivals at other people’s properties or other events.

Particularly when we get into days and weeks like this, when it’s incredibly hot, we can’t make them fast enough for people!

Ya, and you’ve got wine-slushies to go? Which is, uh, you don’t have a drive thru yet? But that could be next, right?

Jeff Katz:
Castle Glen Winery on the jeff katz show - Jeff katz himself
Jeff Katz:
Castle Glen Winery on the jeff katz show - Jeff katz himself
Ed Cowdrey:
Castle Glen Winery Owner in the barn smiling
[Ed Laughs]

You never know! We’re always trying to innovate!

So, do me a favor:

For folks, again, who may be hearing about this for the first time going, “Ya, this sounds like a fun place. It’s dog friendly. It’s got all kinds of great events.”

Can we just show up? Do we have to make a reservation?

How do you sort of meander through that tasting?

Jeff Katz:
Castle Glen Winery on the jeff katz show - Jeff katz himself
Jeff Katz:
Castle Glen Winery on the jeff katz show - Jeff katz himself
Ed Cowdrey:
Castle Glen Winery Owner in the bubble bar smiling - blog conversation icon

Nope! No reservations required!

We are open Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. You can go right on the website and look at the times, but basically, it’s from one to six, almost every day.

We’re open a little bit later on Friday and Saturday.

We’re literally eight minutes from Kings Dominion, right off of I-95, just north of Ashland. So, we’re really easy to get to!

Ya, that’s – again – how Heidi and I are so intimately familiar with your location.

We’re like, “uhh, we’ve got time!”. Uh, and we’re there on a regular basis. I mean, again, just so many great opportunities!

Uh, um, Ed, just give us the website, so that people can check it out. And just real fast, it’s probably not fair, but I’ve got to ask anyways, you’ve got this thing about the Wine Club?

Fill us in on the details!

Jeff Katz:
Castle Glen Winery on the jeff katz show - Jeff katz himself
Jeff Katz:
Castle Glen Winery on the jeff katz show - Jeff katz himself
Ed Cowdrey:
Castle Glen Winery Owner in the bubble bar explaining - blog conversation icon

Ya, absolutely!

So, the website is www.castleglenwine.com.

People can also follow us on Facebook and get a tremendous amount of information including upcoming music events or information about the new Bubble Bar that we just launched!

The wine club is something that we, you know, a lot of wineries have – and we’ve got some special treats for our wine club members. They get – they get discounts, they get a nice welcome gift, um, they get some extra special treatment while they’re there.

They get, uh, they get our regular newsletter that keeps them informed about things that are going on, uh, and it’s very inexpensive to join! And, uh, the –

just the discounts alone that they receive, uh, from their quarterly wine shipments are enough to make it well worth their while!

I love it! Ed, listen, I appreciate you making time for us, I wish you nothing but, uh, great success with Castle Glen Winery and uh, we’ll check in as we get into some of these Fall events as well.

And, uh, I got to hear, a little bit closer to December 25th, about that Christmas blend as well. I look forward to it! That is Ed Cowdrey. The owner, the operator of Castle Glen Winery.

You know, everybody for the last couple of years, it seems like, has been all about craft beer. Right? We’ve got Hardy Wood, we’ve got ‘Center of the Universe’ – we’ve got a lot of them. And they’re really good!

But I got news for you, I’m not the biggest beer guy. Never have been. I mean, I like beer, but it’s not my go-to. Then we started hearing about some of the craft cideries. Now, that spoke to me because I love hard cider. And then, there’s the whole wine experience.

[End of Interview]

You have to remember that Heidi and I lived in Napa for a period of time and when people came to visit us – we went into Napa, we went into Sonoma, we were given our own wine tours.

And so, the fact that we’re located – honest to goodness, our house is like midway between Castle Glen Winery and James River Cellars.

So, we know everybody and I am just saying that, as the world is re-opening a little bit, it’s a great time to go out and support some local businesses. It’s just all upside, if you know what I mean!

It is 4:44[PM]. Jeff Katz, news radio WRVA.

[End of Audio]
Jeff Katz:
Castle Glen Winery on the jeff katz show - Jeff katz himself
Jeff Katz:
Castle Glen Winery on the jeff katz show - Jeff katz himself

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