You like wine? Try planting a vineyard at home
People plant grapevines in their backyards to get a rural aesthetic or for the love of wine itself, or even just for the science of it all
CRAIG Lemoine had a concrete slab in his backyard and he did not know what to do with it. “It was very sad,” he said. “I like everything to be green and lush.”
When Lemoine, who is a professor of financial planning in Champaign, Illinois, was discussing landscaping the backyard with his father, the conversation somehow turned to visiting wineries, something Lemoine has a passion for.
He has travelled to Milan and Versailles to taste full-bodied reds, his favourites. He has also spent time in Sonoma County, California, and the Pocono Mountains and Brandywine Valley of Pennsylvania. “Some of my best memories are sunset on the balcony of a vineyard in the Poconos with my family.”
With that in mind, his father, Bill Lemoine, suggested replacing the backyard slab with a backyard vineyard. “Why don’t we plant vines together?” Craig Lemoine recalled his father asking.
It is not clear how many backyard winemakers there are in the United States. WineAmerica, an industry group, does not have substantive data on people planting vineyards in their backyards, but novice vintners are out there. “There are some people that do grow some grapes as a hobby and maybe make wine in their garage,” said Michael Kaiser, executive vice-president and director of government affairs at WineAmerica, which is based in Washington, DC.
The process of becoming a winemaker can range from taking a trip to Costco or hiring professionals to do the work for you.
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Lemoine started his project by researching which grape varieties would grow in his Illinois climate. “Most land-grant colleges have information on grapes,” he said. “YouTube is good as well.”
He bought a vine developed for Michigan at a local nursery and two concord vines from Costco. “They’re like 30 bucks,” he said.
“At first we planted five,” Lemoine said. “Five became seven, and seven became nine.” Now he has enough vines to cover a 20-by-50-foot area.
What’s in a name?
Erica Ritchie, 42, who runs a wholesale Cabinet distributor with her husband, Brian Ritchie, 45, has a vacation house in Cutchogue, New York, on Long Island Sound on the North Fork, surrounded by commercial wineries. Her vineyard, 23 rows of vines in the front of her house, blends in seamlessly. “People will drive by it coming to the house, and they don’t even realise it’s ours,” she said. “It looks like a real vineyard.”
The vineyard was first planted in 2018 by her father, who bought the house and got the idea from a college friend who had vines in his yard. “My dad thought this was the coolest thing ever,” Erica Ritchie said. “He wanted it to be a place where everyone wanted to come and hang out.” They named it Haven Vineyard.
He planted several grape varieties including merlot, pinot grigio, petit verdot, syrah, and muscat ottonel. Since 2022, Haven has produced 500 bottles of red, white, and rose wines a year, all for friends and family.
Calling in the pros
Richie outsources the hard work of making wine to Long Island Vine Care, a company based in Jamesport, New York, that specialises in installing and maintaining backyard wineries.
The company was started by Stephen Scarnato and his wife, Sarah Scarnato, in 2011 after he worked at Martha Clara Vineyards on the North Fork, and found himself wanting to focus on smaller plots of land. “I would stop and just look at one vine for a long time,” he said. “I kept thinking that if I worked smaller plots, I could really focus.”
The company had 25 clients before the pandemic, and now he has over 40 clients in New York and the tri-state area, but mostly on the North Fork or in the Hamptons. Their plots range from a tenth of an acre to 10 acres. Scarnato said he now turns prospective clients away to ensure he can keep up with his workload.
With a new client, he surveys the land to make sure it has enough sunlight. “I’ve had to turn people away who have too much shade in their yard,” he said. “It’s a hormonal thing. Grapes will not produce in the shade.”
He and clients try different wines and determine the grape varieties they like as well as what will grow on their plot. Factors from wind to the slope of the yard to the proximity to water all determine what kind of grapes grow well.
There are three parts to his pricing: the installation, the management and the making of the wine. Contracts last three years, which is basically how much time is needed to install a vineyard and produce the first batch of grapes. “It comes out to about US$1,500 to US$3,500 a month,” he said.
The science of wine
Not all of these winemakers are counting on commercial success.
Jeremy Winkie, a schoolteacher in Louisville, Kentucky, planted a vineyard in a local community garden. He has two 10-by-20-foot plots that each cost US$10 a year. “I am a science teacher, so I like chemistry and that stuff,” he said. “I thought it would be cool to grow grapes and then I can make wine and scratch that chemistry itch.”
He started three years ago by researching and planting grapes that could grow in Kentucky. He bought two varieties of grapes, saperavi and rkatsiteli, “because I thought our climate here was similar to the Republic of Georgia”, he said, where both varieties are natives. “I bought them from an online shop named Double A Vineyards.”
This spring was the first year his vines produced grape clusters. “It was awesome,” Winkie said. It was even more rewarding because he had battled mildew and fungus all year. “I’ve lost half of my grape clusters because it’s been really rainy.”
He estimates he has spent less than US$100 on the project. “It’s not a terrible, terrible amount. It’s more of a time thing,” he said. “It would be cheaper to go out and buy a US$10 bottle of wine, but that isn’t the point.”
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