Our wine journey started several years ago, when we planted a few grape vines thinking we could make a little wine for ourselves. As is my (Thomas's) fashion, Erin blinked and I had put in a few hundred vines, with no signs of stopping. We've always been avid gardeners and with Laughing King Oysters we were able to realise our dream of making a living as farmers, and grape growing seemed like a natural addition to our farm.

What we didn't expect was to completely fall in love with every aspect of the process, from tilling the ground in preparation for planting vines, to training them throughout the growing season, and finally to making wine with natural yeast from the air and as little intervention as possible. The philosophy we bring to our winemaking is to intervene, add, and subtract as little as possible. Like so many aspects of modern farming, winemaking has become an industrialised process where over 200 additives are approved for wine, including powdered fish bladder, purple dye, and potassium ferrocyanide, yet none are disclosed because there's no ingredient list required. This has taken wine very far from its origin as fermented grape juice, and our experience tells us that when a lot is added, a lot is also taken away.

The Eastern Shore is a fascinating place to grow grapes, with a very unique terroir as well as unique challenges. Our sandy, well-drained soils are completely different what you find at the rest of Virginia's vineyards, and we've experiemented with around 75 varietals in an effort to find the few that perform better here than anywhere else. As our climate and soils are more similar to some maritime regions in Europe than to the most of Virginia, we've looked to ancient grape growing regions like Bordeaux and the island of Sardinia for ideas. Some varietals we're excited about are Petit Manseng, Traminette, Vermentino, Merlot, Chardonel,and Albariño, and the experimentation continues.