Twenty Five Year Plan.

How boring would it be if everything happened just the way you planned it? You’d miss out on serendipitous moments. Nobody likes a spoiler. Does life reward you when you encounter a detour, and have to navigate yourself out of the weeds?

When I first expanded the vineyard in 2022 from three acres to ten, I had what I called a “Five Year Plan”. By 2027, all of my ten acres will be happy, healthy, and in full production. That’s what was going to happen.

Boy, was I naive. I had a block of vines get 100% eaten by deer a month after they were planted. We had back to back droughts in 2023 and 2024 which significantly stunted the growth on all of my baby vines, and killed enough to piss me off. I don’t use herbicide, and I don’t irrigate, so the weed competition for water was compounded. We had cold winters that killed more than 20% of my Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon.

Initially I was upset about all of these misfortunes. But, the vines are more resilient than I thought, and the ones that survived became better for it. Based on the quality of last year’s small crop from my struggling Cabernet, I truly believe that the wines will be better as a result of these struggles.

The vines eaten by deer were set back a year, but grew back just fine (and then I built a deer fence). The baby vines that survived the drought stress grew deeper roots, and have adapted better to our soils and climate. The Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon that died from the cold winters never belonged here. Too weak. I’ll replace them. Then if the replacements die, I’ll replace the replacements, and so on. I’ll continue doing that in perpetuity until every vineyard block is filled with a population of vines that want to be here. My five year plan slowly turned into a twenty five year plan.

Yes, there are certain things I could do to make the vine’s life easier. Like using herbicide to kill the competing weeds, or irrigating the vines if my rain dances didn’t work, or propping them up with an excessive amount of synthetic nitrogen. But then what…are you going to baby them forever? No. Much like parenting, there are things you can do to make your child’s life easier, but sometimes giving too much makes them less prepared for the real world. Make them earn it.

Twenty five years from now, I can only hope that our wines have even more depth, complexity, and soulfulness. The answer won't be winemaking tricks in the cellar. The answer will be that the fruit in bottle comes from the scraggly vines that fought, survived, and truly earned the right to grow our weathered Catoctin shale soils.

Pictured is my son Lukas with a fisher price wagon full of Cabernet Sauvignon vines on his way to help me plant a few. Maybe in twenty five years when I’m close handing over the reigns, he and/or one of my other sons will come up with their own “Five Year Plan” that takes twenty five years to figure out. But even then, will it be figured out? Doubt it. In fact, I hope not, because where’s the fun in having all the answers?

-Adam