It wasn’t long ago that refugees from the city, tired of what they did each day, wanted to burst out of the daily grind and start a Christmas tree farm in the country. A few years later, those same desk jockeys dreamed of running a bed and breakfast. Now, the fad seems to be starting your own winery.
But what is that like? Is there a gap between the romantic vision of clinking glasses with guests in your own wine cellar and the sober reality of actually creating a winery?
Mike Pelino knows. Early this month, he will open Bucks Valley Winery & Vineyards just outside of Newport. The opening marks an exciting, sometimes excruciating, often exhausting trek that required not just vision, but years of learning, hard work and small, relentless steps forward.
Getting Started
Mike wasn’t exactly raised with a vine clipper in his hand.
He’s a Penn State graduate, holds a degree in electrical engineering and has spent the past 30 years traveling the country and the world installing and repairing MRI scanners. Years ago, he began making wine and brewing beer at home, which is how he got bitten by the winery bug.
“After buying the farm in 2000 and toying with the idea of raising grapes, I finally decided to start a vineyard in 2006,” he said. “Being an engineer is not a bad thing, but it seems that being a vintner is much more fun.”
Mike already had learned a great deal from his hobby, but knew that starting a winery would require much more education. So, he enrolled in several enology (wine-making) courses, learning about subjects such as advanced winemaking, packaging and regulations. He sat in numerous seminars and conducted hundreds of hours of research.
“I went to grape-growing seminars in Maryland and Virginia to learn how to select and prepare a site for grapes,” he said. “Also, I needed to know what kinds of grapes would do well with our winters and rainy, humid summers.”
It took him a year to prepare the soil before he could plant a single vine.
“Adjusting pH, nutrients, biomass and testing for nematodes (ground bugs that eat roots) kept me on my toes,” he said.
Mike found that establishing the trellis system for the vineyard was labor intensive. He installed a tractor-trailer load of posts and ran eight miles of wire.
“After the first planting, I realized how much deer enjoy grape vines, so I enclosed the 10 acres with a six-wire electric fence,” he said.
Eventually, Mike planted seven varieties of grapes.
“Growing the grapes allows me to control the final product,” he said. “There’s a popular saying in the wine industry that ‘wine is made in the vineyard,’ and it couldn’t be more true. It starts with choosing the site, then the root stock selection, and finally installing a trellis system and ensuring proper canopy management.”
A Winery Rises
Mike first met with his builder in April 2013.
“I picked a scenic location on top of a hill next to the vineyard,” he said. “To get to this location, customers would need a new driveway about one-eighth of a mile long.”
Building the drive went smoothly until the last 30 feet where the ground became solid rock.
“One-hundred-twenty holes needed to be dug 10 feet deep,” Mike said. “Then we packed the holes with explosives and, boom, I ended up with 80 truckloads of pulverized rock, which became the base for my parking lot. Getting power service to the winery building from the road required over 1,000 feet of underground wire.”
Construction planning for the winery was long and challenging, but Mike didn’t want to cut corners. The winery is energy efficient with geothermal heat, LED lighting, UV EF windows and high-R-value insulation.
At about the same time, he attended the Eastern Wine Exposition to meet with vendors and obtain more information on the equipment he would need to produce the wine.
“Equipment like stainless steel tanks and large presses needs to be ordered six to nine months in advance,” Mike explained. “Almost all of my equipment is Italian, so the vendor takes orders at the exposition in the winter months, then has it shipped from Europe for delivery in the summer before harvest begins.”
Red Wine, Red Tape
Besides growing grapes, building the winery and buying and setting up his equipment, Mike had to receive permissions from various levels of government.
Winemakers must work with both federal and state agencies, including the Department of Agriculture, the Food and Drug Administration, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board (PLCB). They all seemed to have different requirements, so he was never quite sure what to expect.
The Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB) is a federal agency that collects an excise tax for each gallon of wine he sells. They also have to approve each type of label that Mike uses before he bottles the wine.
“It took 30 days to receive a password so I could submit my labels for them to review,” he said. “After submitting the labels, it took an additional 20 days for them to be approved. After approval, it took another two weeks to have the actual label printed. This put me behind more than 60 days before I could start bottling wine.”
Gathering all of the information the TTB and PLCB required for his Limited Winery License took hundreds of hours and resulted in a mountain of paperwork. In the end, he was able to get it all completed.
The paperwork, of course, is just a small part of Mike’s challenges. Then there’s the actual growing of grapes and making of wine.
Here’s how Mike described the process for one of his favorite grapes, traminette, which produces an aromatic, spicy off-dry wine with a white pepper finish.
“I choose a site, test and adjust soil and plant vine root stock on a trellis system. Next, I begin pruning vines in February, initiate a spray schedule at bud break, start scouting for harmful insects and disease, position shoots until they reach the top wire, start shoot-thinning and pulling leaves in the fruit zone to allow sun exposure. This develops monoterpenes in the grape and is usually done three times throughout summer. I pick the grape at proper pH levels, press the grapes, ferment slow and cold with proper yeast, age, filter and bottle.”
Clean Finish
Opening a winery is especially tricky because of the nature of wine.
White wines can be consumed about six months after harvest, but dry reds need more time to develop, from 12 to 24 months. So, once you get approval from the TTB and PLCB to make the wine, you’re looking at a six- to 12-month period before you can actually start selling it.
To promote his new business, Mike plans to advertise locally and attend wine festivals. He hopes to be included on two local wine trails, the Susquehanna Heartland Wine Trail and Hershey Harrisburg Wine Country. In addition, Mike will use social media to keep people informed about current and upcoming events.
He also hopes to open a microbrewery at some point in the future. The beer would be brewed in small batches with a wide range of flavors throughout the year.
“Because beer is best fresh, unlike wine which needs to be aged, I could brew and have two different types available each month on tap only,” Mike said.
To top it all off, Mike has a commercial, gas-fired pizza oven so his customers will be able to enjoy pizza and artisan breads with their wine. He is planning to build an outdoor pavilion with a wood-fired pizza oven.
So, if you think starting a winery is easy, you’d better think again. If you think it can be exciting and rewarding, just ask Mike.
Bucks Valley Winery & Vineyards is located at 333 Meadow Grove Rd., Newport, just one mile off the Midway exit of Route 322 West in Perry County. The grand opening is slated for May 2. For further information, call 717-514-6152 or check out their Facebook page: Bucks Valley Winery & Vineyards.
Don Helin published his first thriller, “Thy Kingdom Come,” in 2009. His recently published novel, “Devil’s Den,” has been selected as a finalist in the Indie Book Awards. His latest thriller, “Secret Assault,” was published in November. Contact Don on his website, www.donhelin.com.
