Do you taste like grapes? With a price of $ 675,000, Pontchartrain Vineyards is for sale | New
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For decades, the picturesque vineyards of Pontchartrain have been nestled in the small hills just north of Covington, along a long gravel driveway off Old Military Road. On summer afternoons, gentle breezes rustle the rows of mostly fruitless vines, the silence is broken only by an underlying chorus of crickets and sometimes by the braying of a cow.
Founded by John Seago in 1991, the winery has withstood the ravages of Hurricane Katrina, financial constraints and, most recently, the pandemic, making it one of the oldest and most sustainable businesses of its kind in the state.
But Seago, who is 77, and Lincoln Case, the chief winemaker and president of Pontchartrain Vineyards, decided it was time to hand over their business: a few years ago, Seago put the property and business on the market, hoping that a next generation winemaker would step forward and love the grapes like they did.
âI haven’t given up on my hope that one person would love the land and continue the vineyard,â Seago said. âThere is a tremendous opportunity to develop and cultivate grapes and produce wine. “
The price: $ 675,000.
The idea for a vineyard came to Seago, a native of New Orleans, while stationed in Germany as a member of the JAG Corps with the United States Army. He and other servicemen visited wineries and ate in restaurants, tasting rieslings, he said.
âFood was the engine of it all,â he said. âIf you grow up in New Orleans, then you eat really well whether you like it or not, and you start to see what goes well together. “
Although the sweet muscadine wine was made with Louisiana grapes, the region lacked native wines that pair well with food, he said. So he learned viticulture on his own, bought 34.5 acres from Bush, and started planting grapes.
The first year of harvest produced only 200 cases of wine which were distributed to restaurants on the North Coast and New Orleans. Production has increased to 2,500 cases per year.
Although the vineyard only produces a fraction of the fruit it once produced, it still produces wines of all varieties, some award-winning. Most of the grapes are shipped from California or other vineyards across the country, but 15% of the grapes used are grown locally. These are used to make a dry white called Le Trolley, a semi-dry white called Roux St. Louis, and a sweet wine called Pontchartrain’s Sweet White.
In the early 2000s, wines from Pontchartrain Vineyard were on the menus of more than 50 restaurants, including Commander’s Palace in New Orleans, and on grocery store shelves, Case said. But after the Katrina coup in 2005, the state changed distribution laws for local wineries, making restaurant and grocery store sales much less lucrative.
The years that followed were financially difficult, said Case. There was no capital to make much-needed improvements to the vineyard and the rows of grapes that once spanned 13 acres have shrunk to just two, Case said.
So they adapted: they built a tasting room and rented the vineyard for weddings and events, hired local artists to give their labels a more local touch – a woman with a fleur-de-lis tattoo on ” Dah Red, âa facade of a French Quarter building on theâ Voodoo Zin â- and enhanced theâ Jazz’n the Vines âfall and summer concert series with food trucks. Recently, a 35-person bus came from New Orleans to see Amanda Shaw and the Cute Guys perform, he said. During the pandemic, they were able to keep the doors open by delivering wine to the north shore.
Case, who developed a taste for vineyards while studying abroad in France while studying law, joined as a sponsor at the start of the vineyard but took over operations when Seago retired in 2013. He considers winemaking as both a scientific and an artistic process.
Although they experimented with other types of grape varieties, the vineyard today only produces Blanc Du Bois.
Maintaining a vineyard and winery is no small feat, as fruit rot and fungal diseases can be prevalent in climates with high rainfall and high humidity, said Mary Helen Ferguson, horticultural officer at LSU AgCenter who works in focuses on the neighboring parishes of Tangipahoa and Washington.
But the biggest threat is Pierce’s disease, caused by the bacterial pathogen Xylella fastidiosa and spread by insects, she said. Chardonnay, Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon and Pinot Noir grapes are highly susceptible to Pierce disease, leaving resistant varieties, like Muscadines and Blanc du Bois, among the few viable options for the region, Ferguson said.
Pontchartrain Vineyards is one of the few wineries in the state, including Amato’s Winery in Independence and Landry Vineyards in West Monroe.
âWe’re on an island since we’re the only ones here doing this,â Case said. âWe still receive people every day who say: ‘I have lived in Mandeville for 25 years and I did not know there was a vineyard on the North Shore. “”
Mike Strain, the commissioner for the Department of Agriculture and Forestry, said there had been an explosion of interest in local wineries, craft breweries and distilleries. He envisions a day when visitors can follow a wine trail through Louisiana.
âPeople want local products; they want the taste of the region and pair it with the local food, âStrain said. “It took California a while to develop all of this … it’s happening.”
The long-term plan, Case said, was always to find someone in the next generation of winemakers who was willing to reinvest in the business and the property. While none of the offers have worked so far, Case and Seago have not given up on hope.
âHe’s a person who is willing to reinvest money to fix some things, like the vineyard, and hire staff,â Case said. âThere is a lot of potential here.
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