At The End Of The Day, We’re Farmers

Farming isn’t for the faint of heart.

First of all, we would like to thank everyone in our community who has reached out to us after hearing about the unprecedented freeze event that affected farmers all over the state of Maryland. Unfortunately, our vineyard was affected significantly just like all of our partner growers. Second, we have to all face the reality that we are farming a luxury product. Making wine all over the world has challenges, not just here in Maryland and on the East Coast of the United States. Some climates and wine growing regions face wildfires, hail, freezes, hurricanes, and even predators like wild boar. But, if you keep reading, not all is lost, and as farmers in the guise of vintners, we have to keep moving forward.

Farming requires growth and dedication. But, there are constant threats that farmers face and sometimes illogical measures that have to be taken to save plants or animals. 

In Tuscany, there is an overpopulation of wild boar. The wild boar will ravage through a vineyard eating all of a vineyard’s crop. These animals can be violent and apparently, nothing scares them. Ironically, hunting season doesn’t start until October—which is after the end of harvest so vineyard owners aren’t allowed to kill the animal that is threatening their livelihood. My Tuscan friend who owns Barbi winery with his family, once told me about the time he and a few other of his employees sat in their cars patrolling their vineyard all night long to honk their horn at the wild boar to scare them. They’ve also tried fences, fires, loud music, etc. Nothing scares or deters the wild boar. Eventually, they found that intimidating the wild boar with their cars emboldened them to ram themselves into the cars, causing damage to the vintage’s crop and the vehicles. My tuscan friend actually named a wine after the wild boar called “il ruspo” derived from the Latin ruspare ("to scratch or scrounge"), referencing the rooting behavior of wild boars. His family started to produce that wine, Il Ruspo, one vintage/year after wild boar entirely decimated their Sangiovese crop.

I’ve grown up in this industry. Over my lifespan, I can’t recall a frost or freeze event that has decimated entire vineyards. However, our neighbor, Buddy, who farms 20 acres of our property, reminded us during a conversation yesterday of a devastating frost event we had in Maryland in the 90s. The predicted last frost date for our region is May 10th but, we had experienced a frost on May 15th decimating that year’s crop. He remembers talking about it with my grandfather—discussing how in those instances, there’s really nothing that could be done to save the growth from mother nature. But, I am my grandfather’s granddaughter. My grandfather often said to anticipate and to keep moving forward and in an odd way, I’ve prepared our winery for a day that something like a devastating frost would happen. We are in a good spot with having enough wine and mead to last us for the next year and a half—exactly when we would be expected to be releasing the 2027 whites and rosé. So, moving forward, we will encounter the 2027 vintage with a lot of anticipation and hope.

Not all is lost, and in fact, we’re excited to share with you all of the stunning wines and meads we plan to release over the next year.