A Walton couple has made it their mission to keep native grapes alive by planting a vineyard and producing wine.
Alfie Alcántara said he and his wife Deanna Urciuoli tried wines using native grapes and it got them thinking about “places you never thought of that could produce grapes and wine.” That included the Catskills. They decided they wanted to buy a farm and plant a vineyard with native and hybrid grapes.
He said he and Deanna called their winery, dear native grapes, to symbolize the beginning of a love letter to the native and hybrid grapes they are trying to save.
New England and New York had a thriving wine making industry using hardy, local grapes from the 1880s to the 1920s, he said. During and after Prohibition, many of the grapes lost their appeal and some varieties have become extinct.
He pointed to a two- to three-inch thick book written in 1909 titled “Grapes of New York,” which lists the variety of grapes and has corresponding illustrations and pointed to a grape called Delaware, which was not named after the county. They purchased some Delaware grapes from a Finger Lakes winery the past two years and made some wine.
This year, the couple planted one acre of Delaware grapes to add to the four other acres planted in 2020, 2021 and 2022. The vineyard is surrounded by an electric fence to deter bear and deer from entering, however, deer have jumped the fence to get inside. “It’s our biggest challenge,” he said.
The farm used to have cows grazing on the hill where the vineyard sits now, making the soil very fertile, he said. The vineyard receives a whole day of sun, making it the “perfect place,” he said.
The couple purchased their 44-acre farm along Crawford Road in 2019 after they searched for places in the Hudson Valley and other parts of the Catskills, which turned to be out of their price range, Alcántara said. The couple had been living in New York City, but visited the Catskills and “fell in love” with the surroundings.
“We had been searching for property for a few years,” he said. “Right when we hit Delaware County, that is when it became more reasonable. We came here and it was like oh my god, how do people not know about this? This is so beautiful here. We were convinced this was the place.”
He said they were lucky because they didn’t know the county had such a strong farming community. “We love that’s there’s so much history here,” he said.
He also likes that there is a lot of support for farmers in the county and in the native grape growing industry. He said Steve Casscles, a Hudson Valley winemaker and proponent of using native grapes, is their mentor. While their grape vines grow mature enough to produce grapes, they are buying grapes from an organic vineyard along Keuka Lake to produce their wines.
This year, they are selling three wines, Cayuga white, Niagara and Isabella. They will sell a wine made from Delaware grapes in the spring, he said.
They make their wines without sulfates, instead using the grape’s own yeast to ferment the wine, he said. The couple currently makes their wine in their garage. This year, they had a building built on their property, which will house the wine making equipment and barrels and also have a tasting room. The heat pumps were being installed Tuesday. “I love the views,” he said. The view of Oxbow Hollow showed a snow squall coming up the valley.