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Napa Valley, Maryland

By Lori L. Rossbach

While Maryland has an established reputation for seafood, tomatoes, and corn, there’s a new crop in town taking center stage—wine grapes. This fruit-of-the-vine is being converted into award-winning Maryland wines that are even upstaging competitors from the west coast and Europe. Who knew?

“Grapes are one of the highest value crops in the state,” says Dr. Kevin Atticks, executive director of the Maryland Wineries Association. “It is one of two or three agricultures that people are getting into, rather than trying to get out of. We are producing wines that are winning international competitions—Boordy, Fiore, Sugarloaf Mountain, Black Ankle—they have figured out the award-winning formula. We grow tomatoes as well as California, and we grow world-class grapes, and make world-class wines.”

Indeed, just this year, Montgomery County’s Sugarloaf Mountain 2006 Cabernet Franc and its 2006 Cabernet Sauvignon both won bronze medals in the International Eastern Wine Competition; the same two wines took gold medals in Maryland’s 2008 Winemaster Choice Awards.

Sugarloaf Mountain Vineyards co-owner Jim McKenna discusses the vineyard.
“Something has happened with the Cabernet Franc and Sugarloaf Mountain—that grape loves it here, it can’t get enough. It grows well, it ripens on time, and it produces a dry red wine with a big, full-bodied flavor and a smooth finish, never acidic.”

Economic Impact

Maryland wine sales are up 125 percent over the last five years, from 5.5 million dollars in 2002 to 12.7 million dollars in 2007. However, of the 12.5 million gallons of wine purchased in Maryland last year, less than two-percent were actually Maryland wines.

“Maryland wine sales make up about 1.7% of overall wine sales,” Atticks says. “If just 20 percent of wine sales came from Maryland wines, that would do huge things to our economy. Right now we have about a hundred-million dollar impact on the state, so if you multiple that 20 fold it turns into a significant economic engine. It would turn into more wine sales, creating more jobs, and creating a much greater demand for vineyards, thereby preserving agricultural lands. The alcohol tax goes into the general fund—benefiting everything from roads and schools, to health care and the environment. For every dollar spent on Maryland wine, it increases the viability of the industry.”

“Right now there is an overwhelming need for grapes,” says Atticks. “We have to go out-of-state for about 50 percent of our grapes.”

The Push for Maryland Grapes

To be deemed a “Maryland wine,” that wine must be made from at least 80 percent of Maryland-grown grapes. With a growing number of Maryland wineries purchasing Maryland-grown grapes, demand is outpacing production.

Today, the state’s wine production totals almost 100,000 cases annually, derived from 450 acres of vines and 34 wineries. “We have about 200 acres more in the planning stages,” Atticks says, “but we're growing much less than our demand for grapes.”

Jennie Schmidt, a Queen Anne’s County grape-grower, and president of the Maryland Grape Growers Association states, “It is definitely in our favor to produce as much Maryland fruit as we can; there is so much of a deficit. For every ton of grapes we produce in Maryland, the wineries are buying a ton-and-a-half from out of state."
"We currently have an incentive program for farmers to grow grapes, including a grant program that provides vineyard capitalist assistance, which in reality will probably cover the cost of the vines for up to three acres,” Atticks says. “If we can get people to try three acres, and then expand. There are more and more farmers coming onboard.”

Three Maryland wineries recently received federal grants to help them expand their business, according to the Washington Business Journal. Elks Run Vineyards of Mount Airy, Terrapin Station Winery of Elkton and Casia Vineyards of Stevensonville each were awarded grants from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to create new products. Cascia Vineyards received $99,856 to create a winery on their farm.

Establishing a Vineyard

Five years ago, the Schmidt Family converted three acres of their 2,000-acre family farm in Sudlersville, on Maryland’s Eastern Shore (where they grow corn, soy, and tomatoes) into grapevines. Encouraged by the results, they’ve been expanding. “It took three years and a lot of practice,” Schmidt says. “Once we saw that we could get a good harvest, we expanded. Last year we made the decision to add five more acres. We produced 20 tons of fruit last year, and right now, I don’t have enough fruit to go around. This year we intend to add another six acres, and next year, another six. We’ll have between 20 and 21 acres of grapevine, the largest commercial vineyard on the shore.”

Schmidt says that while the Eastern Shore doesn’t have the traditional slopes for which vineyards are known, good grapes can be grown by good growers. Her land on the shore sits at just above sea level. “One of the attributes here on the shore is its sandy loam soil. They are well-drained soils, good for flavor development in the grapes.

“The more mature vines are less work, most definitely,” says Schmidt. “Year two is the hardest. The first year you plant vines in the ground and get some kind of shelter around them; you keep the weeds under control. Year two is all about getting the trunks trained straight, getting them into position. It involves a lot of pruning and hands-on work to get them up and in position. Once the vines have dropped their leaves after the first frost, we start pruning—usually in December or January.”

For the Schmidts, that means over 10,000 vines are pruned by hand. They’ve expanded their workforce, bringing jobs to the county.

Schmidt says her wine grape crop has started to realize a profit, “but it took several harvests to get where we recouped our capital expenditures. Expenses can be as much as $10,000 an acre, but we don’t have to spend that much because we already have farm equipment on hand. The start-up cost for us, as farmers, is less.”

The Sugarloaf Mountain Vineyard in Montgomery County sits about 600 feet above sea level, where McKenna grows grapes on 12-and-a-half acres. He looks back on how he first got started in the industry in April 2004 and realizes there was a lot he didn’t know. “I figured we needed two things: the best vines available on planet earth and a great winemaker.

“The first year deer, birds, and Japanese beetles destroyed our crops. We made a bigger fence, put in a bird signaling system, and did a little spraying to keep the beetles at a minimum,” he says.

As the grapes mature, they must be checked on a regular basis for sugar content, measured in brix. “Generally speaking, when you get to 26, you know your alcohol content is about 13, but you are getting into a danger zone if you get to 27 brix, then there is too much alcohol, it’s too strong,” McKenna says.

Establishing a Winery

When Mark Emon first established the St. Michaels Winery in Talbot County three years ago, he readily admits he had no knowledge of the business. Today, the winery employs 16 people and has sold over a million dollars in wine.

“I researched on the Internet, hired a consultant, and stopped my full-time job. I went unpaid for 18 months and went into debt a bit,” says Emon. “My wife did get a little testy toward the end of the 18th month. But, last year we used 46,000 pounds of Maryland grapes and produced 18,000 gallons of wine, which is currently sold at 135 locations. The biggest challenge is to meet demand; we keep adding larger tanks and trying to produce more.

“We constantly buy more equipment,” Emon says. “For the first two-and-a-half years, we used a mobile bottling service. But it was harder and harder to get on the schedule, so we recently purchased our own.”

Industry Obstacles

Maryland’s 34 established wineries (with five more set to open by 2009) are currently producing more than 300 different wines, sold in about 600 stores and served in about 100 restaurants. As with any new product, distribution and marketing go hand-in-hand with increasing sales.

“Look at the states around us and you’ll see that Pennsylvania and Virginia have a much more established industry and a lot stems from the amount of support they’ve received from their states legislatively, for both alcohol laws and marketing,” says Schmidt. “Currently for our promotions, our distribution and marketing funds, we have a total of $150,000 from our state.”

“The biggest obstacle in this industry hands-down is the regulatory environment with its antiquated, post-prohibition regulations,” Emon says. “Literally, a winery is allowed to sell one quart per person per year. There is ambiguity of whether you can sell someone a glass of wine. It is so complicated even when you read the code you’re like, ‘huh?’ The whole shipping thing is crazy! I can’t count the number of times people ask if I can ship something to them…hundreds of times, and I have to say, ‘no’,” says Emon.

“The reason we are not permitted to ship wine is that we haven’t convinced the legislators that it’s time to allow it,” Atticks says. “The arguments come from other segments of the alcohol industry that are afraid that by bypassing wholesalers and retailers, consumers will give up on wine shops and only buy from the internet. But if you do a modicum of research on the 39 states that allow shipping, like California, which has the most vibrant wholesale and retail industries in the world, and go down the list of the top 10 states that produce and sell wine, every single one has grown because the local market for alcoholic beverages and wine has grown, and they all allow the shipment of wines. Their retail industry and wholesale industry have both grown. That Maryland is any different, any more susceptible is absurd.”

Lori Rossbach, former managing editor of What’s Up? Eastern Shore, resides in Queenstown and frequently writes about environmental issues.

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