Press Archive

Roger Morris | The News Journal | 02/15/2006

Eastern vineyards challenge West's dominance

In the world of American wine, there's the West Coast, and there's Everyone Else. But Everyone Else — the regional wineries of the East Coast, South, Southwest and the Plains — keeps growing and prospering and might even be threatening Western dominance.

A review by the industry magazine Wine Business Monthly says that there are more than 5,300 wineries in the United States today, and a little more than half of those — 2,740 — are in California. Washington comes next with 418, and then Oregon with 317.

Rounding out the Top 5 are East Coast wineries — New York, once the center of American winemaking, with 252, and neighboring Pennsylvania, No. 5 with 130.

The rest of the Top 10 are, in order, Texas, Virginia, Ohio, Michigan and — I'm surprised — Colorado. New Jersey is No. 14 (52 wineries), Maryland is No. 21 (32), and Delaware, the First State, is last when it comes to wineries with only one — Nassau Valley Vineyards near Lewes. Even the urban District of Columbia has three wineries, perhaps one for each branch of government.

In most states, these wineries are almost exclusively regional, with almost all of their sales coming within their state's borders. But it's easy to find wines in any store nationally from California, Washington and Oregon. New York wineries have some sales in the Northeast, and you may see an occasional wine from Texas. A surprise is New Mexico, whose Gruet sparkling wines distributes its 80,000 cases in 47 states. Just about everything else is regional.

Numbers of wineries and their sales patterns have little to do with quality, of course. Throughout the United States, local wineries are beginning to become huge tourist attractions, as they concentrate on making quality table wines and elegant dessert wines that no longer taste like cough syrup.

Within the last four years, the local Brandywine Valley wine scene has grown from being essentially a very good one-act business — Chaddsford — into multiple wineries concentrating on a variety of wines.

Six of those wineries — Chaddsford, Va La, Folly Hill, Paradocx, Kreutz Creek and Twin Brook — have created an explosive promotional unit, the Brandywine Valley Wine Trail. In March, it kicks off its third season with "Barrels on the Brandywine."

"Barrels" is a promotion featuring samples of wines from the 2005 vintage, lots food and lively entertainment. Last year, hundreds of people bought passports good for tastings at all six wineries. (Go to www.bvwinetrail.com for information.)

And the Brandywine region continues to grow as local vineyard owners ponder becoming winemakers. It may not be California, but being No. 5 is still not so bad.

Return to Press Archive