The John Deere chugged along the hillside, guided by GPS, in a precise line five degrees to the northeast. Its plow churned up the rocky soil, while two people in the back of the tractor fed vines into a contraption that resembled two Ferris wheels. The contraption then turned downward toward the center, planting the vines a few feet apart.
It was twilight, April 25, the fourth day of planting at Burnt Hill Farm, the new vineyard of Old Westminster Winery near Clarksburg, Md., in northern Montgomery County. This patch of hillside was the last of 13 acres planted with approximately 20,000 vines.
Two years ago, I scrambled into a six-foot-deep soil pit dug into this hillside to examine the crumbling phyllite rock just below the topsoil. On this recent visit, Drew Baker, Old Westminster’s vineyard manager and the oldest of the three 30-something siblings who run Maryland’s most dynamic winery, cajoled me onto the John Deere to feed vines into the planter. Years from now, if two rows of gamay underperform, you’ll know who to blame.
“Gamay is not widely planted in this region, but I love it, so we gave it a prime spot,” Baker said, as his winemaker sister, Lisa Hinton, infant son in her arms, arrived to check on the progress. When I asked about the orientation of the rows, he explained that the 5 percent variation on the standard north-south axis “gives us slightly more morning sun than afternoon,” taking advantage of the cooler part of the day. And they are using biodynamic farming practices, determined to make a low-intervention approach work in the challenging Mid-Atlantic climate.
The Bakers have said they hope to produce an “iconic Maryland red” at this site. But they are also eager to experiment. Along with those rows of gamay, they have planted some pinot noir, also uncommon in a region dominated by cabernet franc…