Dairy Land Yields to Wine Country
RANDY F. SHEA had been trying unsuccessfully to sell 250 acres of dairy land with a friend for four years when it occurred to him one afternoon in October 1994 that vineyards thrive on land like this.
As he walked the property with its fertile, sandy soil, he said he looked at a rise sloping sharply toward a drainage basin and then began comparing characteristics of the property with knowledge he had recently acquired from a wine class about ideal growing conditions for grapes.
“I remember pointing, ‘That’s where the pond is,’ ” said Mr. Shea, 65, a property lawyer. “That’s where the vineyard is. That’s where the winery should be. I learned that through my feet. You don’t totally understand a piece of property through your head and eyes. You have to use your feet.”
The land had been under contract to one of Mr. Shea’s clients, who wanted to build a residential subdivision and golf course. That client could not afford to buy it, so Mr. Shea took over the contract and bought the land in 1990.
Mr. Shea’s friend, James R. Johnson Jr., 55, a site contractor, agreed that the land could be a vineyard.
In 1998, they measured off 20 acres and began planting European vinifera — chardonnay, cabernet franc, cabernet sauvignon and merlot. Four years later, they marked off 20 acres and started planting pinot gris, lemberger, chambourcin, Norton and zweigelt. In 2003, their first two wines were merlot and chardonnay.
On Sept. 20, Mr. Shea and Mr. Johnson opened the Laurita Winery to the public and thrust themselves into the growing New York region wine industry. The name, Laurita, comes from Mr. Shea’s mother’s first name, Rita, and Mr. Johnson’s mother’s first name, Laura.
In New Jersey, the number of bonded wineries has increased to 45 since the 1981 repeal of a post-Prohibition state law that limited the number of wineries to one per million residents. If the law were still in effect, it would allow for eight wineries in New Jersey.
New Jersey produces about 412,000 cases of wine each year, according to the Garden State Wine Growers Association.
New Jersey grape growers were expecting a good crop after a mostly dry season but other areas had challenges. In Connecticut and on Long Island, heavy rains from Tropical Storm Hanna in September left growers scrambling to protect their fruit from diseases. The Hudson Valley and Long Island were hit with a May 1 frost that damaged many primary grape buds, which are responsible for most of the grapes on vines. Hail damaged some vineyards in the region.
Most wineries grow their own grapes or buy them within the state. “In order to really promote Jersey wines, you have to use Jersey grapes,” said Gary Pavlis, a Rutgers agricultural extension agent who works with wineries. “And people are aware of that.” He said he advises about two people each week who want to open wineries.
The state has two main growing regions. The northern region features cool, hilly terrain with limestone or shale soils suitable for pinot noir, riesling and Cayuga. The warmer southern region, where the Laurita Winery is situated, grows mostly cabernet, merlot and viognier in sandy soils on low hills or flat lands whose climate is influenced by the Atlantic Ocean and the Delaware Bay.
On the day that the Laurita Winery opened, many grapes were completing véraison — the summer growing period when grapes soften and begin to increase in volume, weight and sugar content. The season had few rains and ended on a dry note.
“It’s great for the vines,” Mr. Shea said. Then he invoked a winemaker’s proverb: “Grapes don’t like wet feet.”
A driver operated a tractor attached to a hay wagon carrying 20 people around the vineyard and the irrigation pond. Mr. Shea was among the passengers. The wagon looped around the 36,000 vines arranged in fingers that broke every 900 feet for air circulation.
“See that American flag over there? See how it’s flapping?” Mr. Shea asked. He pointed to the middle of the vineyard toward a large flag that was bought at auction after the closing of the Garden State Park racetrack in 2001. “That’s how you can tell there’s good circulation.”
This is the first in a series of articles about wineries in the New York region and the people behind them.
The tractor eased the wagon down into the 13-acre basin called Kate’s Meadow.
Monarch butterflies and dragonflies scooted and darted through air thick with honey, mint and citrus. A few hornets, shaken from their flowers, fell stunned into the wagon and then, having recovered, whirred back among the 31 species of wildflowers in the field.
Mr. Shea said that the meadow was seeded in December 1998 in memory of his daughter Kate, 25, who died of leukemia. The passengers and Mr. Shea scanned the meadow in silence.
Then the wagon’s tires hit a rut and some passengers steadied themselves on the wooden rails. The path swung toward the winery, where a jazz band played for the 350 people who showed up for Day 1 of the two-day opening.
Near the jazz band, some New Jerseyans shared a 2003 Chardonnay Freestyle. Unfortunately, the bar was out of the reserve stock, they said, the wine aged gently in Hungarian oak in the production room beneath the winery.
Liz Carder, 53, a dental hygienist from Yardville who regularly bikes along Archertown Road by the winery, said she was surprised, then pleased the dairy land was turned into a vineyard.
“Our best surprise is that we get our cheese from Philly, and the guy who is serving the cheese inside is him,” she said.
Jerry Sowa, 65, a graphics consultant from Hamilton Square, said: “This is a thousand times better than having some development come in here to destroy the land. I remember when it was Dancer’s Farm.”
Over beneath the patio, built of muscular hemlock beams, Mr. Johnson foreshadowed the vigor with which he and Mr. Shea planned to participate in the wine industry.
“France was the renowned wine capital of the world,” Mr. Johnson said. “And then they started to do some good stuff in California. Then California took off. Long Island’s doing the same thing, and New Jersey will follow.”