Winery loses almost all of its grapes after late Virginia frost: ‘We need you’
By Caroline Coleburn
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NEW KENT COUNTY, Virginia (WTVR) — Mother nature is forcing some Virginia wineries to make tough choices.
Joe Dombroski and his wife, who have owned and operated New Kent Winery for the last 12 years, said before this year they’ve only had one bad crop season due to frost in 2020.
In 2026, they’ve lost about 90 percent of their grapes due to a late Virginia frost, but still have to spend money to keep the vines alive.
“They’re perennials, and they’ll come back and produce fruit, so we’ll have to fertilize them,” Dombroski explained. “We’ll have to spray them, do all the things that we would normally do during a growing season, except we’re going to reap no benefit.
Fortunately, the estate winery keeps about 12 to 18 months of wine in stock in their production facility either in bottle or barrel, so they will still have wine for sale.
“The price might be a little bit higher in different varietals depending on what has happened out here this year with the cost that’s going to come to the farming, but we’ll be okay,” he noted. “The smaller growers, the smaller wineries in Virginia, many of them will be in trouble to even make it through the year because they go from harvest to harvest.”
Dombroski adds the drought hasn’t impacted their crops, but he and his team are encouraging Virginians and visitors to support your local wineries if you want to see them thrive and survive.
“We need you,” he explained. “We need you to buy Virginia wine. Look for it in the grocery store so that we can keep everybody afloat, basically to keep the industry. It’s a $3 billion a year agricultural industry in the state of Virginia. It is a big part of the agriculture industry here in the state and the tourism industry. So, we really need to keep promoting it, not just look for tourists on the highway. We need our local folks to come out and support their local wineries.”
Dombroski says some of their Vidal and Cab Franc grapes survived the frost, so they will have to evaluate if there are enough to actually harvest.
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