April 8 2011: news flash Cooper Vineyards held their Grand Opening celebration of their LEED certified tasting room. Meet The Farmer TV was there and we will have video interviews coming up! Here we see the First Lady of Virginia, Maureen McDonnell, cutting the proverbial ribbon - in this case a real grape vine.

*******40 min rough edit 1080p HD VIDEO UPLOADING MONDAY 4-11-2011- it takes a few hours to load the multi-GigaBytes******* drawings (Baskervill) and more detail photos to be added next week

The new tasting room incorporates numerous "green building" design features, such as: geothermal temperature regulation, solar power, SIPS panels, and recycled materials and reclaimed rainwater. The new building will also feature a unique tasting bar including a second outdoor bar on the new large deck overlooking the vineyards, a private tasting room for parties and other special events and a baby grand piano in the main tasting room. [info from Cooper Vineyards website:] We will talk to Geoffery Cooper and Jacque Hogge, the mentors and owners, also to the architect Michael Pellis  about designing such a wonder, and to Erin Hensley of Urban Grid Solar about the technical aspects of this green building and the grid tied 5.8kW PV array mounted on the ground so everyone can walk around to look at it.