Image Credit: Edwin Remsberg
When Dr. Joe Fiola, Viticulture Specialist for University of Maryland Extension, started talking to Maryland farmers about how the state could be a great place to grow wine grapes, he spent a lot of time on the road doing site visits to help growers evaluate their land’s vineyard potential.
Today Fiola does much of that site evaluation on his office computer. The technology is very helpful, he says, because otherwise, with the explosion of interest in starting a Maryland winery, he would be travelling all the time.
Maryland’s wine industry has grown from 11 wineries in 2001 to close to 70 today, with more springing up in every region. As the number of awards going to Maryland wine attests, quality also has risen. “They’re concentrating on the grape quality and fine-tuning their products,” Fiola said.
It’s not just wine that’s caught on. Maryland growers are turning to other adult beverage crops and products, such as hops for beer and apples for hard cider. There’s even a distiller producing commercial moonshine.
MomentUM talked with five alumni from the University of Maryland College of Agriculture and Natural Resources who produce adult beverages from their own crops. The keys to success, they all say, are to do your research, talk with other growers, be ready to work hard and think like an entrepreneur.
Advice from the Pros
•Do your homework; It’s agriculture and a business.
•Attend workshops and talk to other winery owners.
•Find a good vineyard site
•Choose varieties that do best in your region
•Plan on $15,000/acre to start a vineyard; 2-3 years for the first crop; 4-5 years for the first wine
•Use the resources available, including:
UM Extension - www.extension.umd.edu/smallfruit
Maryland Wineries Association - www.marylandwine.com
Joe Layton ’70
Layton’s Chance Vineyard and Winery
Vienna, Dorchester County
www.laytonschance.com
Joe Layton says his favorite work is driving his tractor in the fields of the family’s Lazy Day Farm. Started by his father in 1948, the farm has 1250 acres of corn, soybeans and wheat.
But in 2000, the Laytons wanted another way to earn more money. Layton’s son, Wiliam ’96, and wife, Jennifer, wanted to return to the farm, and, says Joe “We had to find a new way to support two families.”
So, after six months of looking at the possibilities, the Laytons came up with the answer. Wine. “We started learning everything we could,” Joe says. “Every Sunday morning for two years, we sat down at the kitchen table and planned.”
Lazy Day still grows field crops, but today, Layton’s Chance Vineyard and Winery has 15 acres of grapes that produce 9,000 gallons of wine with names like Joe’s Cool Red, that are sold all over the state. There’s a tasting room, event site and vineyard tours, often led by Joe.
“I was confident as far as agronomy,” Joe says, “but with wine, the costs are so far ahead of the earnings. You try to decide what’s going to be popular five years from now.”
The work and risk have been worth it, Joe says. “I’m usually the last one out of the tasting room at night. I walk around and think ‘We really did this.’ It’s something I would never have imagined.”
Doris Wood Behnke ‘84
Turkey Point Vineyard
North East, Cecil County
www.turkeypointwines.com
September, 2011. Doris Behnke and her husband were ready to harvest their first crop of grapes. They’d waited two years for the moment, but right before the harvest, the government shut down, holding up the permit they needed to sell wine. Then Hurricane Irene blew in.
“We lost the whole crop,” Behnke recalls. “We had to handpick five acres of grapes and burn them to keep them from rotting in the field.”
Behnke wasn’t new to the ups and downs of farming. Like four generations before her, she’d grown up working on the dairy farm that’s become Turkey Point Vineyard. It was a tough loss, she says, “but if disaster is going to happen, it’s best to have it in the first year.”
“I always had it in the back of my mind I’d like to start an agriculture business,” Doris says. In 2007, when she inherited a parcel of the family farm, the Behnkes decided that business would be a vineyard. Today they grow four varieties of grapes and produce seven wines, some award winners. They recently opened a tasting room on North East’s Main Street.
The Behnkes still work fulltime jobs off the farm, Doris as a Cecil County Extension agent, but they are in the vineyard many hours a week. “You question yourself every day if it was the right choice,” Behnke says, “but when you’re pressing the juice, it’s so beautiful, it gives me peace of mind knowing we have an agriculture adventure going on the farm that my ancestors worked hard on for so many years.”
Read more about AGNR alumni making MD wine starting on page 10 of the latest issue of MomentUM magazine!
