New life for an old town: wine co-op helps transition from tobacco while boosting agri-tourism

Rural Cooperatives, July-August, 2009 by Stephen Thompson

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In the picturesque farmland of historic St. Mary's County in Southern Maryland, a cooperative of wine-grape growers is working to build a new industry that can help take the place of a lost cash crop.

For centuries, the agricultural lifeblood of the county was air-cured tobacco. It grew well in the sandy soil and hot, humid climate and it provided a good living from as little as 30 acres. Fortunes were made from it. In colonial times, tobacco was Maryland's prime export, and its leaves even served as currency.

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But in 2004, the federal tobacco price-support system came to an end, and with it a way of life. The Maryland cigarette restitution, or "buyout," fund provided 10 years of payments, starting in 2000, to compensate farmers for the loss of their protected tobacco allotments and help them make the transition to new crops. St. Mary's County had the largest number of participants in the program.

Today, only one year before the buyout program begins to expire, tobacco has all but disappeared from the Southern Maryland landscape, with less than 100 acres planted in St. Mary's County. The auction houses that were centers of the industry and of cultural tradition are all closed. The only hint of the crop's former importance is the many curing barns now standing incongruously among fields of corn and soybeans.

But the trouble with corn and other grains is that they are low-value crops, requiring much larger acreages to be profitable. Corn yields are not especially high in the area, and the small average size of land parcels raises the costs of cultivation and harvesting.

So, with the demise of tobacco, local farmers and rural planners have been searching for high-value cash crops that can take its place. One that offers some hope, interestingly, is catnip. Another is wine.

Vines replace tobacco

Rich Fuller is a retired civil servant who worked at Patuxent Naval Air Station, on the banks of the Chesapeake Bay in St. Mary's County. He now volunteers at Summerseat Farm, a historic former tobacco plantation, owned by a nonprofit organization, near the county seat of Leonardtown. He's also president of the Southern Maryland Wine Growers Cooperative, an association of 15 viticulturists who are pioneering local wine production.

The cooperative was formed in 2007, after political officials from Leonardtown and the county came to a local group of winegrowers with an offer. They would provide funding and a building for a winery. In return, the winegrowers would help develop wine as a commercial industry--not just as a new livelihood for farmers, but also as a means of making the area more attractive to tourists.

Wineries have proved to be valuable tourist draws in nearby areas. In neighboring Virginia, wine festivals, tastings and vineyard tours draw thousands of visitors every year. Next door to St. Mary's, Calvert County, Md., has established the Patuxent Wine Trail, a tour of five vineyards.

As a tourist attraction, St. Mary's County has a lot going for it. It's only an hour drive from Washington, D.C., and boasts beautiful scenery and a historic past. It includes St. Mary's City, the first capital of Maryland and the fourth-oldest English settlement in North America. It is also home to a number of other charming small communities. Old lighthouses, plantations, bed-and-breakfasts and small museums dot the landscape.

A sizeable Amish colony adds to the atmosphere, and the wide highway shoulders built for their horse-drawn wagons and carriages attract large numbers of bicyclists every year for the Amish 100 bicycle tour.

The building offered by the town for the winery is a former state highway department maintenance shop. It's located next to an undeveloped park, on the banks of a picturesque creek.

Winery to anchor park/market development

Laschelle McKay, the town administrator, is supervising the renovation of the building and the development of the property. The plan is to make the winery the anchor of a beautifully landscaped park with a picnic area, nature walk, a demonstration garden and a canoe- and kayak-launching area. A canoe-tour company has announced plans to launch trips from the park, which McKay sees as a welcome complement to the winery (see illustration).

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The park will complement other efforts by the town to draw tourists, including the redevelopment of the waterfront; the town originally served as a tobacco port. Leonardtown boasts a number of restaurants, galleries, shops and a photogenic town square. It also hosts a number of special events throughout the year, including a county fair, a classic car show, crab and oyster festivals, an antique show, a bluegrass music festival and other events that could benefit the winery project--and vice versa.

McKay's current goal is to get the winery operating in time for this year's harvest in September. The landscaping and other construction will take a little longer. She seems proud of the cooperation between county, town and winegrowers in getting the project off the ground. "It's taken us years to get to this point," she says. "But it's finally coming together."