A big-city architect leaves her firm, sells her house, moves her family down south, buys a historic farm and transforms it into a bustling winery.
No, it’s not the plot a Hallmark movie; it’s the true story of Carmel Greer and South Paddock Winery.
Greer and her husband Dan Baum had lived in Washington, D.C., for years. It’s where Greer founded her architecture firm District Design, where Baum worked in public relations, where the couple raised their four children. But when the pandemic brought their busy lives to a screeching halt, the big city started to feel much smaller, more restrictive.
“We went from being happy to having huge ants in our pants,” Greer told The Daily Progress. “We were just restless.”
So on a family trip to Charlottesville, where Greer lived as a student at the University of Virginia, they began to shop for real estate. By late December 2020, the had found what they were looking for.
Just a few miles north of the town of Scottsville in the rural southern corner of Albemarle County, Whitehall Farm stretches across 310 acres of rolling hills, forests and pastures. Dating back to 1780, when southern Albemarle farmland was prized for its proximity to the James River, which carried produce to market in Richmond and beyond for much of the 18th and 19th centuries, Whitehall Farm today sees more riding crops than cash crops.
Dozens of horses roam about the 60-acre horse farm under the supervision of Rock Branch Horse and Cattle Co., based in the village of North Garden just north of Whitehall Farm. Rock Branch runs the Whitehall stables and provides horseback tours of the estate.
While it is primarily a horse farm, 5 acres of the estate just beyond a large, white farmhouse were set aside years ago for grapevines.
According to Greer, the vines were planted roughly a decade ago by Carl Tinder, a vine virtuoso who has been cultivating vineyards across Central Virginia since the early 2000s. Named the Virginia Vineyards Association’s “Grower of the Year” in 2020, Tinder and his company, Tinder Cattle & Vineyard, are responsible for putting more than 275,000 acres under vine in the commonwealth, including at Pippin Hill Farm & Vineyards in North Garden and Chisholm Vineyards in Earlysville.
By the time Greer and Baum restored and moved into their new house, there were three varietals thriving in the Whitehall grape fields: cabernet franc, chardonnay and petit verdot. Still the couple was undecided about whether they would continue to cultivate, given neither had any experience in growing grapes or making wine.
“We had a serious debate about what to do with it. It’s such a commitment, you don’t just do it as a hobby,” said Greer. “But I didn’t have the heart to take it down, because it was healthy. … It just seemed shameful to tear it down.”
Fortunately for Whitehall Farm’s new owners, they had purchased a vineyard in the heart of the Monticello wine country, home to more than 40 vineyards and wineries — vineyards and wineries that have developed a reputation more for collaboration than competition. That teamwork netted the wine country surrounding Charlottesville Wine Enthusiast magazine’s honor of “Wine Region of the Year” in 2023, beating out international rivals including France, Italy and California.
Greer joined the Virginia Vineyards Association, which she found to be “incredibly welcoming,” and connected with the right people.
“We wound up finding a lot of our equipment just through the kindness of strangers,” she said. Wisdom Oak Winery in North Garden offered Greer and Baum its trailer so the couple could haul back some of Wisdom Oak’s harvest lugs. “We had a lot of experiences like that where people are just helpful and nice.”
And just like that, Greer and Baum went from “urban vegetable patch to running a vineyard.”
Eventually, they began sending their grapes to Michael Shaps Wineworks in Keene, where they were pressed, fermented, bottled and shipped back to Whitehall Farm under the label South Paddock Winery.
The winery takes its name from the enclosure outside what used to be a sporting facility on the property built for the prior owner’s sons.
Greer’s designer eye took one look at the barn-like structure filled with batting cages and basketball hoops and knew it was destined for something more.
“I’m not a wasteful person. I don’t like having this big, wasted thing,” she said. “And it just seemed like, obviously, what do you want to do in a space this big? Throw a party.”
But before there could be any parties, it would take nine months to renovate the space into a tasteful tasting room. Today, the building is filled with rustic tables and chairs, Chesterfield sofas and a bar where patrons can grab a glass of cabernet franc, chardonnay or rosé. There’s also cheese, charcuterie and vegetable boards on offer for those feeling peckish.
“I just felt like there’s a lot of merit to … we try to do a few things and do them well,” Greer said. “So we only make a few wines, but we make really good wines. We only have a very limited menu, but we try to make it tasty.”
The South Paddock tasting room opened its doors to the public in late August and has become a relaxing “neighborhood joint,” according to Greer. It’s only open from 1 to 5 p.m. on Saturdays, but those hours may be extended once warmer weather rolls back around.
Often, customers come to check out the new winery after visiting Mount Ida Farm & Vineyard, whose property abuts Whitehall Farm. The neighborhood is also home to some big names, including Blenheim Vineyards, owned by musician Dave Matthews; Gabriele Rausse Winery, owned by the so-called Father of Virginia Wine Gabriele Rausse; and Trump Winery, owned by Eric Trump, son of once and future President Donald Trump.
With neighbors like that, Greer is looking for ways South Paddock can stand out.
Like many other wineries in the area, South Paddock chardonnay is aged in stainless steel, which gives the wine a more acidic, crisper taste compared to the buttery chardonnays aged in French oak barrels on the West Coast.
Greer prefers the Virginia style so much that she is planning on taking it up a notch.
“I’m trying to do interesting things with the chardonnay than the standard chardonnay,” she said. “We’re having a little fun and making an experimental orange wine.”
Orange wine has been gaining in popularity in recent years. Despite the slightly misleading name, it is made entirely from white wine grapes that are fermented along with their stems and skins. The tannins in the grape skins are responsible for giving orange wine its distinctive hue and its citrusy flavor.
The rest of South Paddock’s winemaking takes place at Michael Shaps, but the orange wine experiments are happening right at Whitehall Farm.
“We’re just having some fun with that. It may be terrible. In that case, it won’t see the light of day,” joked Greer.
Greer is also considering pursuing the opposite of an experiment and taking South Paddock Winery back to basics and planting more grapes that are native or better adapted to Virginia’s temperate, humid climate. Cabernet sauvignon, merlot and chardonnay are popular, but they can struggle in Virginia.
“Ideally, I’m obsessed with varietals of grapes that actually want to grow in Virginia,” she said, mentioning the Norton grape, which was first cultivated in Richmond.
But grapevines and wines take years to mature, and Greer has more than enough on her hands with a line of petit verdot coming out in the new year.
“We’re pretty committed to just using the grapes that we grow,” she said. “We’re a little winery, and we’re gonna make little batches with the grapes that we actually grow.”
Source: www.dailyprogress.com