Lexington, KY - Benjamin Franklin once said, “Wine makes daily living easier, less hurried, with fewer tensions and more tolerance.”
If that be the case, the wine industry should forever have a market. At least that is the hope of a growing number of vineyards and wineries in Kentucky. The state has seen a marked increase in the number of those entering the industry over the past decade.
Tyler Madison, the grape and wine program director for the Kentucky Department of Agriculture (KDA), said the industry has grown exponentially since 2000, with 66 wineries or small-farm wineries currently operating in the state. One thing that has helped with that growth is the availability of grant monies to help prospective wine makers get started or remain sustainable.
“We’ve got two grants that we are using now to directly help the wineries as well as the wholesalers,” Madison said. “One is a marketing, cost-share grant that is an allotted amount we get each year that helps [producers] get a 50 percent reimbursement on their advertising and marketing receipts.
The other grant is for wholesalers. There is a law in Kentucky that states producers must use them to distribute their products. To make smaller operations more appealing to these wholesalers, the money is used on an opt-in basis and gives back a $20-per-case reimbursement for small-farm wineries.
These grants have helped new producers as well as new distributors, which ultimately has helped the industry expand. Just last month, the Kentucky Agricultural Development Board approved $515,000 worth of Agricultural Development Funds for the Kentucky Vineyard Society to maintain the Viticulture Extension and Research program, including an extension viticulture specialist, enologist and technicians.
Quantifying the return on investment is something KDA and University of Kentucky are working on by way of an economic impact study, added Madison. The study will provide a more exact figure of just what the industry means to the state in terms of dollars.
Tom Cottrell, the principle extension enologist at University of Kentucky, said there is a lot that goes into producing a good wine, of course beginning with good grapes, and that takes time and is not easy.
“Not only does it take time, it’s quite complicated. Because of the disease pressure, a special spray is needed once a week, and you are not going to use the same spray week after week, because the molds and fungus will get used to it,” he said. “The pruning has to be done just right; the spraying has to be done just right.”
He added that wineries that do grapes really well have to be in the right locations, and choosing the right topography is critical. Cottrell also said there are several procedures that have to be done correctly to make a tasty wine — things like choosing the right yeast for fermentation and the right chemistry to produce that good wine.
“It’s a lot of physical work, and it ain’t cheap,” he said. “It takes a great deal of money. To do a 3,000 to 4,000 case [per year] winery requires that you have access in the first four or five years to $2 million to $3 million.”
With that said, Cottrell thinks the number of wineries will continue to rise, perhaps crossing the 100 mark within another five or six years.
One thing wineries here and in other states have done to offset the cost of production is to create other activities at their venues, including music events and food. Madison said he wants to promote that more from his office — wineries aren’t just wineries anymore; they are actually destinations.
“With people staying home on staycations, it’s nice to know you don’t have to go to Napa or Italy anymore when we have high-class wines with attractive vineyards and tasting rooms. It’s coming along, definitely,” he said.
While most people still think of California when it comes to wine, from an historical perspective, Kentucky was once a frontrunner in the wine business, having been home to the first commercial vineyard in the country way back in 1798. From there, the state became the third largest grape and wine producer in the country until Prohibition hit.
It wasn’t until 1976 that legislation passed allowing wineries to operate here once again, but tobacco was still king in terms of farming. With the federal tobacco quota buyout, however, many farmers began looking at diversification options, and grapes obviously looked good to many.
That trend is being experienced all over the country. At least one study from Colorado State University reports that wine is now produced in every state, and grapes are the highest value fruit crop in the country and the seventh largest crop overall.
And not only are more wines in general coming from Kentucky, but more award-winning wines are being produced here. Madison said he continually hears from wineries that have won medals in competitions all over the country.
“It’s pretty impressive to think [about going from] basically not having a wine industry 10 years ago to having a wine industry now that is being touted nationwide,” he said. “There’s a definite increase in quality. It’s pretty impressive what they’re doing now.”