About Us

We are a small family farm of 36 acres nestled between the historic cities of Williamsburg and Richmond, VA. Moon Beam Estate was established in 2007. We just started raising  Leicester Longwool sheep, a rare and critically endangered breed July of 2015.  It is our goal to help this beautiful dual purpose sheep gain a strong foothold once again. 
We also raise Cynthiana/Norton grapes in our vineyard. With approximately 300 vines we hope to someday sell grapes to fellow vintners. In 2016 we added Cayuga vines to our vineyard. These grapes produce a crisp, dry, delicious white wine. We are looking forward to being able to have a nice harvest of these grapes in a couple of years.

Who We Are
 Who are we? Dennis and Debbie Hockaday. We have a strong desire to be as kind to the environment in our farming practices as possible. We started the vineyard on a half acre, planting muscadines and a few table grapes. Muscadines are a native grape to this area and require very little spraying. Most grapes grown in the Southeastern United States require spraying for many diseases and pests.
After several years of growing muscadines and making delicious wine from them, we decided to try a different variety of grape. After some experimentation, we settled on the Cynthiana/Norton. It creates a delicious, dark red wine with a lot of body.
At the beginning of 2014 we decided that we wanted to raise Leicester Longwool Sheep.  All the previous fencing had been taken down, so we were basically starting from scratch. After a year of steady, hard work we had the pastures and barn ready for livestock.

Our History
The history of this farm goes back to the mid 1800's. It has been in the Hockaday family for many years. Dennis was raised here and the family raised Tennessee Walking horses. He was active in 4H and won many awards showing horses. Back then the farm was over 180 acres. After all of his children left home and started families of their own, Louis Hockaday started raising beef cattle. We still lived on the farm and were very busy helping with the cows and hay. Nothing like a hot summer day on the back of a hay wagon behind the tractor.
At one point there were over 50 cows on the farm. Since then, some of the farm has been portioned off to family members. We were fortunate in getting our little piece of paradise. It is our dream to add to an already history filled area.