Harwood Winery Grows and Bottles a Fine Red

Doug and Maureen Heimbuch have been wine lovers for quite some time. About a decade ago, after buying Thanksgiving Farm in Harwood, Doug decided to plant some grapes and do some experimental wine making for himself and his family. That hobby has turned into nine acres of vineyards, and a commercial license to make and bottle wine for the public.

The Thanksgiving Farm wine is available at local wine stores, and is for sale out of their Harwood tasting room, which is open to the public each Sunday.

Doug said that in college he had experimented a little with wine making. "It was God-awful, but we were kids," he said of those first few batches several decades ago.

He's had a career outside of agriculture and food service. Doug is a fisheries scientist and Maureen is an attorney.

In 1998, they planted their first grapes.

"We were just doing it for our own home consumption," Doug said.

They have some favorite wines that they'd like to emulate in terms of flavor. Doug notes that they enjoy the French Bordeaux by St. Emilion, which sells locally for about $40 a bottle.

Thanksgiving Farm's premium wine is a Meritage, a Bordeaux-style blend.

The initial planting next to the farmhouse has blossomed into four kinds of red wine grapes planted on nine acres. The grapes are: Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Petit Verdot and Cabernet Sauvignon.

In 2010, they harvested enough grapes to produce about 500 cases of wine.

All along, the husband and wife team have kept up with both the science and the art of wine making. Each year they experiment, and buy a few more supplies to make their operation less labor intensive.

"Our goal is to make good wine," Doug said.

They've mostly kept their day jobs, but have reached a point in their professional careers where they don't have to be in an office all the time.

"Wine making is a full-time job," Doug said.

Maureen said that they're hoping to make the venture a success since they've sunk a good bit of their retirement money into the enterprise.

The Heimbuchs want the wine that they produce to be 100 percent from Thanksgiving Farm. Doug said that they don't—and won't—buy grapes or juice from any outside sources to make their wine. 

Aside from hiring a crew to help harvest the grapes, they do everything themselves, from pressing the grapes and transferring the juice to the fermentation tanks, to bottling the wine and putting the labels on.

Doug spent a year designing the logo and label for the bottle.

They have about a half-dozen large fermenting vats, they own a grape destemmer/crusher and press, they have their own bottling and labeling operation and the wine is left to age next to their wood-paneled tasting room in oak barrels made of imported wood from France.

Each year their wine is a blend of their four grape varietals. After the harvest, they create different blends and invite family and friends to join in the tasting to help them determine what the best mix will be. That is how they come up with the Meritage wine that is their premium offering. Each year the percentage of the different kinds of grapes is a different, hand-crafted blend. 

With the grapes that remain, they bottle a "Farmhouse Red."

The Meritage, although new to this market, is already getting good reviews. Their first bottling, the 2009 Meritage, won the Atlantic Seaboard Wine Competition's Bronze Medal. The 2010 Meritage took the competition's Silver.

Tonight, they are offering a Farm Dinner, a collaborative effort of local food from Swan Farms, local chefs from Herrington on the Bay, and wine from Thanksgiving Farm. Unfortunately, the event is sold out.

But those who want to taste wine from Harwood's first winery can visit the tasting room every Sunday from 1 to 5 p.m. There, they offer a $1.50 sample or a $4 to $5 glass. They also sell their wines by the bottle, including the Dry Rose for $10, the Farmhouse Red for $15 and the Meritage for $25.

Thanksgiving Farm is located at 195 Harwood Road in Harwood.