Winemaker Debuts Crowdfunded Rooftop Vineyard in Brooklyn Navy Yard

That one crazy Kickstarter about planting a vineyard on a Brooklyn rooftop that peaked everyone’s interest last summer — and raked in nearly $17,000 in donations — now has something to show for the hype.

This Wednesday at 6 p.m., Devin Shomaker, founder of Rooftop Reds, will open his urban experiment to the public.

He’s calling it ”the world’s first commercially viable urban rooftop vineyard in New York City.”

The Brooklyn Navy Yard might not be exactly what comes to mind when envisioning a terroir that is suitable for viticulture. But with the help of Finger Lakes industry leaders and Cornell University, we have developed an urban planter system that is the first of its kind. Rooftop Reds has commissioned 50 of these state-of-the-art planters to fill our 14,000 square-foot rooftop at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. With these in place, production of a sustainable and completely Brooklyn vintage will be possible.

Tickets to Wednesday’s ”pig roast launch party” on the rooftop are available online for $35 per head.

According to a recent interview with Shomaker in Brooklyn Magazine, the wine served at Wednesday’s party won’t come from roof-grown grapes, as those aren’t ready yet.

However, Shomaker’s team also makes ground-grown grapes into wine over at Miles Wine Cellars in rural New York. (We’re guessing that’s where he’ll get Wednesday’s refreshments; we’ve reached out to confirm.)

The real debut this week, then, is the space itself — a 600-square-foot rooftop deck strewn with hammock seating and overlooking the vines, with a view of the Manhattan skyline and the industrial jigsaw of the Brooklyn Navy Yard below. Doesn’t get much buzzier than that.

Image courtesy of Rooftop Reds.