By Kate Kampner/Community News Service
Editor’s note: The Community News Service is a program in which University of Vermont students work with professional editors to provide content for local news outlets at no cost.
Kendra Knapik fell in love in grad school. In love with her future husband and with wine. But it was only after attending a vineyard party almost 20 years later that Knapik realized wine could be a fitting business venture for her.
That summer, in 2017, she began taking viticulture classes at the University of Vermont, learning to use as few pesticides as possible and employ sustainable practices.
“That made sense to me,” said Knapik, and in 2018 she and her husband Rob opened Ellison Estate Vineyard after taking over an abandoned farm in Grand Isle.
Their operation belongs to a number of Vermont vineyards and wineries that practice regenerative agriculture — an increasingly popular method that goes beyond minimizing farming’s costs on land to, instead, helping restore the environment agriculture relies on. Close to 30 wineries called the state home as of earlier this year, according to the Vermont Grape and Wine Council, and grapes are grown on about 170 acres statewide. The industry has a strong focus on organic and regenerative farming, says the council.
Regenerative agriculture typically emphasizes soil health as the key to success. It requires high attention to crops and constantly being in the fields. Farmers practicing the method often forgo tilling soil, use cover crops and minimize water and chemical inputs, said Terence Bradshaw, the UVM professor who taught Knapik.
Another regenerative practice Knapik has taken on is allowing her flock of sheep to graze and live among the vines. She also deploys polyculture — growing different crops together at the same time — to achieve healthy soil.
Part of regenerative methods “is about creating a balanced ecosystem and listening to the natural world,” said Knapik. “What we do in [conventional] farming is innately unnatural … We’re changing the landscape.”
She saw that firsthand after last year’s heavy rain, when she was surprised to find her vines bounce right back, she said. “You’re allowing the vines to build a backbone,” she said, by maintaining a balance between building a natural resistance and cultivation.
Most grapes grown in Vermont are cold hardy hybrids, Bradshaw said. Commonly, farmers in Vermont crossbreed North American cold hardy grapes with an Old World grape, vitis vinifera. The North American grapes resist diseases but lack taste, so combining their genes with those of the Old World species makes for a better product.
“[Vermont is] making big strides because we’re growing a crop that’s adapted to the region,” he said.
Typically, Bradshaw said, the Vermont species requires only small doses of pesticides.
Bethany Pelletier, a UVM grad student studying local viticulture management with Bradshaw, said within regenerative agriculture principles, “the difference really comes down to pesticides and what people are using for chemical management.”
She said a lot of non-chemical options like grape pruning or leaf pulling have a notable impact in the vineyard. “Boots on the ground, physical management makes a big difference in their ability to combat disease,” she said.
But many diseases found in vineyards are tricky to manage without chemicals, she said, which is why most growers aren’t interested in an organic certification even if they do follow sustainable and fairly organic practices.
Pelletier said pesticide usage varies vineyard by vineyard. Many use mineral sprays with copper and sulfur, some of the strongest tools against diseases like black rot. Others use plant extracts and biological pesticides like Regalia, which can combat big fungal diseases.
Knapik makes her own brew of horsetail and nettle, two plants that can act as pesticides foraged from her vineyard. Her family’s operation doesn’t have an organic certification, but “our customers know what they are tasting and getting,” she said. “It’s intentional farming.”
Certified master sommelier David Keck, who owns Stella14 Wines in Cambridge, believes there will be a potential to reduce the downsides in regenerative farming. “Vermont is a pretty challenging place to grow grapes, and so I think we do as much as we can as properly as possible,” he said.
“We’re at a really exciting time for winemaking in Vermont,” Keck said. “People are more serious and interested in drinking wine from different places than they’ve ever been before.”
In the Northeast, regenerative viticulture is somewhat unique to Vermont and northern New England, said Bradshaw, the UVM professor. In his work, he looks at how wine is handled: Cultured yeast, enzymes and other processing aids are avoided in many Vermont operations, he said.
“The wine will taste different … and therefore it fits into a different slot and a different product,” said Bradshaw. “Most of the time vineyards can have higher prices for the wine, but yields will be lower.”
The tradeoff for any momentary discomfort with a new taste? “People can feel good about what they’re doing,” he said. “They can feel good about purchasing a product, about experiencing the literal fruit of the land, and that’s not for nothing.”
Knapik said typical winemakers outside Vermont keep winemaking and farming separate. Many winemakers will buy grapes from farmers. In Vermont, most grow the fruit and make the wine, she said.
“If you have good fruit, winemaking is easy,” she said. “If you are true to the land, and you have beautiful fruit, then that is going to be the purest representation of the land.”
Keck, a member of the state wine and grape council, thinks that’s “totally on brand with the ethos of Vermont. It makes a lot of sense that most of the winemakers and growers are leaning into that.”
“We’re kind of set up well right now to focus in a regenerative way in ways that either weren’t done or were quite difficult 30 years ago,” he said.
But, said Bradshaw, Vermont’s vineyard industry “has plateaued.” The environment, regulatory and otherwise, makes it hard to add more outfits without losing existing ones, he said. He and others agree the state needs more grapes and more grape growers. With more grapes, they reckon, comes more stability for growers in the state.
In the past year, Keck has been proposing policy and investment into grape growing to lawmakers. He’s hoping, with the help of the Vermont Grape and Wine Council, he can get policymakers to reduce challenges growers face like up-front costs during vineyard installation and lack of infrastructure.
“I think one of the challenges associated is that we don’t have that much wine, we don’t make that much,” he said.
From where she and her husband sit with their vineyard on Grand Isle, Knapik is optimistic.
“I think what’s going on in Vermont wine is super duper exciting, and I think there’s a lot of people doing some really exciting work,” said Knapik. “Hopefully the state will start to notice that a little bit more and give agricultural support and some support to build this as an actual industry in Vermont.”
