A Note from the Owner
Hermes Vineyards is a winery devoted to growing exclusively vinifera varieties, especially
of more unusual varieties such as Rhone, Italian and Spanish varieties in the Sandusky
region, with the use of minimal winemaking interventions. Our philosophy is: wine
is made in the vineyard. Many people have asked, why here and why these varieties?
It's been almost a decade since I decided to plant a vineyard and start a winery
on our 7th generation family farm in Ohio. Spending the last 20 years as a psychiatrist
in private practice in New York City, I had originally looked for a place to plant
a vineyard closer to me on the east coast. However, I couldn't find anywhere else
in the east with the ideal growing conditions for vines as in the Sandusky area
where our family farm resides.
In fact, my great, great, great grandfather on my
maternal side, a Hermes (my mother's maiden name), was attracted to the area because
of the growing wine industry in Sandusky. He was a grape grower in Germany's Moselle
Valley, where the Hermes family are still large grape growers today. Starting in
the 1850s, German grapegrowers (like my ancestors), were attracted to Sandusky's chalky
limestone soils and long, temperate growing season created by the moderating influences
of the western basin of Lake Erie and the Sandusky Bay. This long growing season
extending from april till end of harvest at Thanksgiving, unrivalled by most grape-growing
regions, maximizes flavor development in the grapes. In fact, for a quarter of a
century after the fall of the Cincinnati wine industry (America's first) due to
grapevine diseases in the mid 1800s and prior to the emergence of the California
wine predominence in the late 1800s, Sandusky was the leading wine producer both
for quality and quantity in the country, and for a half century after that remained
2nd or 3rd. Remains of these enormous old winery buildings remain in and around
Sandusky.
These are some of the reasons I chose my family farm to plant a vineyard.
I chose to ignore the prevailing wisdom that you could only plant hybrids in Ohio
or hardy vinifera like riesling or cabernet franc. I planted 25 varieties of vinifera
including Rhone, Italian and Spanish varieties. Beating even my own expectations,
all have been able to ripen and make good wine. Because of this success I've continued
to plant these varieties and have close to 30 acres planted now.