Farming Grapes and Making Local Wine with Anthony Vietri

Liam Dempsey: Welcome to Start Local, where we talk with business owners, leaders of nonprofits, and other members of our community focused on doing business in and around Chester County, Pennsylvania. Each episode will provide insight into the local business scene and tell you about opportunities to connect with and support businesses and nonprofits in your local area.

Joe Casabona: The Southern Chester County Chamber of Commerce promotes trade, commerce, industry, and sustainable economic development while supporting a diverse and growing marketplace. The chamber is proud to partner with the Start Local podcast to raise the profile of businesses and nonprofits throughout Chester County. Learn more about the chamber at scccc.com. That’s scccc.com. 

Liam Dempsey: Hey. Hey. We are coming to you live from the tasting room at Valla Vineyards. It’s a start local podcast field trip.

Erik Gudmundson: That’s right, Liam. We stepped out of the usual podcast studio, and they were on-site with today’s guest whom we will introduce shortly.

Liam Dempsey: Yet there is absolutely more fun happening here. 

Today, folks, is the first time in the history of our happy little podcast that all three hosts are recording an episode together. You’ve heard Erik’s voice. You’ve heard my voice, and we’re really happy that Joe Casabona is here too, leading our production efforts. He’s not on the mic, but he’s absolutely here and working hard.

Erik Gudmundson: Yeah. We’re certainly grateful to have Joe’s skills here in the background today even though you can’t hear him. He’s in his day job as a podcast and automation coach. And so we’re capitalizing on those skills for today’s episode. Thank you, Joe. 

Alrighty. On to today’s guest. Yes. We’re speaking today with Anthony Vietri, a local winemaker who grows and cultivates his own grapes right here in Avondale, Pennsylvania. Under the family business banner of Valla Family Farmed Wines, Anthony’s wine has garnered a number of awards and countless accolades from the wine industry and locals alike. 

Welcome, Anthony.

Anthony Vietri: Thank you for having me.

Liam Dempsey: Anthony, thank you so much for joining us today. It’s a privilege, well, hosting us here today. It’s a privilege to be here. Thank you. Thank you.

Anthony Vietri: It is our great honor.

Erik Gudmundson: Well, let’s set the table for our listeners. You make wine in Chester County, Pennsylvania. It’s highly rated and respected by wine critics.

Anthony Vietri: Alright. I’m gonna disagree with that.

Erik Gudmundson: We’ll get into that. Certainly. Well, you have, we have enjoyed your wine. It’s wonderful, unique, and delicious. So, tell us briefly about the different wines that you’re producing here. We’ll ask separately about your production processes, but just give us a quick overview if you don’t mind.

Anthony Vietri: Okay. So, we’re a very, very small farm. We focus on estate-grown and bottled, small batch wines that are unique to this farm, hopefully. 

We focus on rare varieties. So, on our little farm here, we grow, at the moment, about 50 varieties, northern Italian and French. And the wines are made solely from the grapes that we grow on this hill. And we produce, usually four wines each year if, the Gods smile on us. Sometimes they don’t, and we don’t. But if everything goes perfectly, we make four small batch wines, by the names of, La Prima Donna, Silk, Mahogany, and Cedar.

Liam Dempsey: Chester County has many wineries. In last that we counted, there were something like 12. And unlike most of the other wineries you’ve just shared with us, you grow your own grapes, and you grow them, variety found in Northern Italy and in France. Unpack a little bit some of the varieties that you have, and why are you focusing on those two two regions, Northern Italy and France?

Anthony Vietri: Well, my family is from Piemonte in Chester Italy. Piemonte has a tradition of field blends, which are made from Northern Italian indigenous grapes, but also occasionally French grapes. Their culture is actually has a lot of French in it because it was actually, Bonaparte’s general, one of his generals, basically was the lord of our area. And so there’s still a castle on our little village and the whole bit. So at any rate, that was something that came kinda naturally. 

And then just by provenance, we ended up having a similar terroir and climate to the village that my family is from, and so that just kind of tied it together. 

And that’s our excuse. And then the last reason, I guess, is just purely insanity. That’s what I don’t wanna…

Erik Gudmundson: Well, you made a business decision along the way to not distribute your wines. So for folks to buy your wine, they have to come to your farm, to your tasting room. How did you decide to follow that business model?

Anthony Vietri: By not having a lot of business sense to start with, and secondly, being so small that you were that was your only choice. If you’re larger or a normal size winery, you produce a certain percentage for wholesale sales.

If you’re very, very, very small like us, we would be out of business in a month if we had wholesale, going on. So, that kind of forced us into having to sell everything from our front door. And that’s how we arrived at that amazing, business model.

Liam Dempsey: From our conversations with you, certainly today and before today, and even with some of your team members, it’s really clear that you’re an artist and your medium is wine. And I suppose it’s also the vines and the soil outside. But do you think of yourself an artist, or how do you approach your work as a farmer and as a winemaker?

Anthony Vietri: I’m literally no artist in the least, but I do like to be called a farmer, and, I do see a lot of, goodness in that. And, it’s the most challenging thing that I have ever encountered. And, it’s so challenging that I could not even describe to people. 

I mean, you can make things as challenging, I guess, as you want to. And this, for whatever reason, grabbed a hold of me and made me be challenged so much.

Liam Dempsey: Well, let’s talk about farming for another moment. Cavallo Vineyards is family owned and is farmed vineyard here at the southern part of the county, in Avondale, specifically. And you and your, or I should say, your parents, bought the 6.7 acre farm back in the early twentieth century after immigrating from Italy. Tell us a little bit more about the history of this land that we’re sitting on today, and how did it start with your parents?

Anthony Vietri: I’ll give you the short version if I can. 

So my, family came from a little village in Northern Italy called Giussvalla. It’s about 400 people. And, we know that we’ve been farming continuously since at least the 1500, probably more, but that’s as far back as the records go. 

My family came here to work in the gunpowder, mills at Pants at Hagley, and they saved up the money to buy a piece of land. And they bought this land. We will be a 100 year old or a century farm, in two years. 

Liam Dempsey: Wow. 

Anthony Vietri And so, when my family bought it, they, dabbled in the mushroom industry for about, sixty five years, I think. We did that. And then, we always made wine. And so I learned to do that here as a kid, learning from my great grandfather and then his son, and, it just grabbed ahold of me early on. 

And so that’s how we got in a roundabout way into this business.

Liam Dempsey: Another differentiator between Valla Vineyards and other Chester County wineries is that you, Anthony, actually focus on dry wines. Why are you doing that? What’s the impetus for that?

Anthony Vietri: I think for me, because I did it since I’ve been doing this since I was a child. That was what I learned, and that’s what I felt comfortable with. And I’m not a kind of a person that wants to, I have such a hard time doing what I do. The trying to add anything new to it is not something I look forward to. 

And I think people just do what, you know, interests them in other wineries and what the public demand there is. They listen to that and or what fashion might be, and they listen to that. Since I’m kind of insulated and isolated here, I just kind of focus on trying to do the four things that I do better than I did, you know, the previous week, and that’s all I kind of focus on. And then all of a sudden, you turn around, there’s twenty five years. You know? It just happens overnight.

Erik Gudmundson: Well, I personally really enjoy your wines, and I definitely gravitate towards dry wines. So it’s no coincidence that we are here. I’m sure of that. 

Tell us, though, is one of your wines a crowd favorite or or maybe a critical favorite?

Anthony Vietri: No. I can’t say that any are a favorite. I keep I have twenty five years of records, and I keep the records for every week that we’ve been open. 

Liam Dempsey: Wow.

Anthony Vietri: And they’re, at the end of the year, there’s no one that’s ahead of another one. 

So, certain ones attract certain kinds of people. You know? But when all is said and done, we’re very lucky that way because if it was imbalanced, it would really throw us off because I don’t really design the vineyard and the production to be anything other than what the vineyard can give us. And so if we were in that kind of of a battle, that would make it even harder for us, if if that makes any sense.

So those four wines, we’re just lucky to have pretty much the same demand for.

Liam Dempsey: So we’re sitting in your tasting room, in your vineyard on Route 41 just north of the Delaware border. So, lots of road outside front is quite business most folks will know from the area will know that. Lots of, I see the sign on your front of your farm. But tell us about your typical clientele. Who actually pulls off the busy road and into your vineyard and into your tasting room? Tell us about them.

Anthony Vietri: So we get essentially two groups. We draw from people that are interested in wine, or they’re with somebody who has an interest in wine and brings them here. That’s the one group. And they’re interested in, you know, having something that’s a bit different, that’s all locally made and that sort of thing. 

Then we have, and this is the thing we were completely unprepared for when we started.

Erik Gudmundson: Go ahead.

Anthony Vietri: With our vast investment in business knowledge that we had. We discovered that, hey, there’s tourism in our area. And so, we are located we’re blessed to be located between the tourism of Lancaster and the tourism of the Brandywine Valley. 

And so, you know, Winditter and Hagley and Longwood Gardens, people come to visit these places in Lancaster, and they say to themselves on the second day, well, now what are we gonna do? 

Thankfully, there’s a second or a third day, and that’s where we fall in. So a small amount of those people crumble to us. And, we’re very happy for that. 

But we truly weren’t expecting it. So the first person that ever walked into our tasting room turned out not to be from Tuff Kenneman or Avondale or Lannonburg. They turned out to be from Seattle, Washington, and we were just stunned that someone was here from there.

And that has been the way at this little bar of 10 seats that it’s been ever since where you have, you know, locals from Avondale, maybe the people that dug our, winery for us, or our old grass cutter who’s now, you know, a township supervisor, whatever it is.

And then there’s some people from New York and some people from Paris. You know? And it’s just really amazing to see that, especially for people that weren’t expecting that at all. 

So, the other part of that is, I did wanna say, we also do draw from the cities around us. So we get people that wanna take a day trip. And these are the wine folks. And they’re coming from Philly, Washington, New York, New Jersey, and then Harrisburg. Wilmington also. I don’t know how to say that. Wilmington.

Erik Gudmundson: Well, the people working here seem to be having fun, and I’m sure that’s one of the reasons that you continue to draw regulars, you know, back in here to the tasting room. But you’re, the workers here behind the bar, they’re passionate about your wine. 

Some of the servers are here as a second job, and they probably don’t need that second job for financial reasons. Our server at our most recent visit told us that she was a retired corporate executive. Many of these servers have worked with you for years. You’re a great ambassador of your own wine, but we don’t always see you behind the bar. What prompted you to have people, to hire people to work in your front office?

Anthony Vietri: So, everything you say there about them is true. We would have nothing without them. It was the biggest change and threat to our existence was that when we started, we were just so blessed to have four generations involved in every part of this business on a daily basis, seven days a week. And we ate dinners together, and we talked about business. And all we did was business, business, business, this business. And so was, you know, my my grandmother, my parents, my wife’s parents, and my wife and I and my daughter at the table every day talking. 

Unfortunately, you know, as these things go, you know, you get older and people our family members who all worked in here one by one started to pass away. And so we had to come to a decision where we needed to, you know, expand beyond our declining population of family members.

And so, we very tentatively put, actually, we didn’t even put feelers out. People just knew. They just had a vibe, I think. No one asked us previously, but people started to leave little handwritten scrawled notes when they came here. And they said, if you ever need somebody to work in your tasting room or to pick grapes, you know, or whatever and so I would take these things and be like, you know, oh, no. No. We’re never gonna and I throw them in this file. 

Well, one day, I had to go to that file. And all the folks that work for us, every one of them, except for miss Jane who you mentioned earlier, were clients of ours who did that. And they just all have, they’re all professionals who have much better jobs than this, but they wanted to do it. And that was just that was just my family up there looking down on us and, like, sending the right people to us. I really think that. And and we’ve just been they carried us. I mean, we would not be able to do it. I am no longer behind the bar, because I did that when I started and then eventually got to the point where I couldn’t handle the workload. 

So my responsibilities in the vineyard are seven days a week, the winery seven days a week. And then to be here, two and a half to three days on a weekend, standing on concrete the whole time for eight hours just was it, physically it’s a lot.

Liam Dempsey: Yeah.

Anthony Vietri: Got to a point where it was like I had to make a decision to pick two of the three, and nobody else was gonna be able to do the other two. So it wasn’t an easy decision for me in that respect.

Liam Dempsey: You’ve shared that being a farmer is the hardest thing that you’ve ever done. You talked about it just a few moments ago. And we would expect then that it’s really hard work to harvest the grapes and then to make the wine itself. Who performs this intense labor? And within that, is it seasonal work? Is it year-round? Tell us about it.

Anthony Vietri: So, we have a lot of folks that say to me, well, when is your downtime? You know? And the vendor must be in the wintertime. And I’m like, no. There’s literally I don’t have probably a week that I’m not in the vineyard. 

And so what happens is that, as you mentioned with harvest, when harvest is over, I immediately have to do the preparations out there for the next season. And so I’ve got to run around and do these other things that are barking at me in the back. So, like, for instance, I have to run over here and prune my orchard. That has to be done in time, and I have to get, other things around here pruned and done because then I’ve gotta get in the vineyard and spend a hundred days, on my knees pruning.

And so to help me with that, I have an assistant who’s here, part time, couple days a week, Alberto, and he’s been helping us for twenty years probably.

And so, and then when we harvest, it’s friends and family do that nowadays, and, we just work it out as best as we can. And with bottling, you know, we just have all hands on deck to go to do the bottling and one day a year. 

And so, we draw from those folks, but I have to kind of keep it. It kind of limits the ability for us to grow. So I’ve gotten that idea of of expanding completely off the table because, that would entail us going to a completely different business model where we’d have to hire somebody full time, and it’s not something that we’re really comfortable with. We’re just people that like to do the very small, you know, variation of something. And so we’re comfortable with that. And so, yeah. That’s it.

So that, so the winery is all year. The vineyard is all year. The tasting room, which I’m not behind the bar, but I have to do, like, you know, all the tasting notes. I literally print those up. I draw all the things. I do the logos. I do the labels for the bottles. I have to pick out the bottles, the corks, blah blah blah blah. You know, all that stuff. Place the orders for the cheeses and the foods and things like that. That all has to happen, you know, during the week also. 

And so, that’s all year county because we’re open all year round.

Erik Gudmundson: Everything comes together to deliver just a wonderful experience here at a visitor’s tasting room. And one, I’m very much a foodie myself. So, in addition to enjoying good wine, you serve several delicious local snacks that you pair with your wine tastings. And people can also buy larger portions of cheese and other accoutrements at the tasting room here. Tell us about some of them.

Anthony Vietri: So we planted the vineyard in ’99. We actually started planning. You have to start two or three years before that. 

So, one of one of the things that I did was that, I had lived in Italy and California and New York and made wine in these places. And one of the things that I just couldn’t understand as an Italian was that why when you went to a tasting room you got a jug of water and some stale saltines that have been out from the day before.

And I just never understood that because, you know, wine, especially dry wines, are made to go with the main course. And though I don’t expect you to bring out a steak for me, although that would be lovely, I would like to get an idea of the wine by tasting some actual food. 

And so the thing that I’d always loved were local cheeses. Well, that was easier said than done because nobody had done that before. And the cheese, the local cheese makers hardly even knew each other then.

So I literally just got in my truck and would drive out into the countryside. The first person that I finally wrangled down into, you know, giving me some samples, we purchased some samples, I tasted them, and I said, this is fantastic. This is exactly what I want. It was Pete from Shellbark Hollow, the farm, and he’s been with us ever since. And so, basically, what I did with him was I said, okay. There’s one. Now, Pete, I need a, you’re a goat. I need a sheep, and I need a couple of cows. And he would tell me, well, I heard of a rumor of a woman who has sheep out in Blohorn, you know, near Doe Run.

And so I went out there, and for three weeks, I just drove around in a truck looking for sheep. And one day, I finally ran into a man on this back road, you know, near Blowhorn, and I said, Listen. Don’t get creeped out by this. But is there a person around here that I’m trying to find them that have sheep, and he oh, that’s over in Gumtree. And blah blah. So I found them.

So each of the cheeses went like that. It was just so difficult. Now, you know, they have a website. They’re all together, which is fantastic. But at that time, it was much more difficult. Then we met a person who was, we called the little girl who lived down the lane, and she lived right down the lane. She baked fresh bread for us. And so my mom made fresh focaccia. And then we bring in fruits and vegetables that are seasonal here, like, you know, my figs and things like that, and Asian pears, whatever, and serve those with it. And so that’s how it kind of all came together.

Liam Dempsey: Well, certainly, trends have come and gone in the world of wine, and the popularity of wine has ebbed and flowed over the years. Has your wine tasting process changed in the wake of these changes or trends in the wine world?

Anthony Vietri: No. Not really. Because I just do what I know that I can do, but I’m constantly experimenting because, as a child, we experimented here. And so I can draw off of those things that we experimented with, whether they were a success or not. 

So for an example, we have a wine right now that is made from dried grapes. And the only reason I felt comfortable going there was that we had done it so many times as a kid, and I was intrigued by it. And I knew the pluses and the minuses and, you know, how to go about it. So, so within that little bit, we do.

But believe me, there’s no huge demand for dried grape wines at the moment. It just was it just felt like a good time to do it. So I try not to pay much attention to what goes on outside of here. I don’t go to other wineries within a hundred miles.

And the reason is that it breaks up my concentration. I don’t wanna think about what anybody else is doing because I don’t wanna second-guess myself. And so what we’re doing here is kinda has to be what we do and focus on that and try to do better at that rather than to be concerned with what else is going on out there. 

So, on the one hand, we’re blissfully unaware of difficulties that are out there and the successes because you’d be, you would adjust if you couldn’t help it if you know it. But if you don’t know it, it takes a bit better. Yeah. Yeah. No. I get it. That’s the way we look at it anyway.

Erik Gudmundson: I wanna paraphrase the legendary Bob Ross as you’re thinking about refining your your experience here and little tweaks and things that you’ve made to it. He always said mistakes are just happy little accidents. So as I’m gonna call you a wine artist even though you may not accept that definition. Tell us about a mistake you made and when, on a time when you did try something new and and what you learned or gained from it.

Anthony Vietri: So like I was saying, as a kid, we just loved experimenting. So, to give you an idea, we actually made more wine for my family than I do commercially for many years. So we were really into it. 

And my family loved the fact that as a kid, I was into it. And so they were very open to my suggestions even though they were crazy, and we would just do different things. You know? And they were most of the time, they didn’t work because it was your first time. You’re experimenting with something really odd, and it’s not going to work if it’s way out there. But the experience was really, really good.

And so, you know, we accidentally made some things, and we did, we did good and bad. And, those things I draw from every day. And then there are other things, like, for instance, never use a block of wood as a plunger when you’re doing a hand crank crusher because you might run your hand right through it. That was one thing I learned with all this.

Erik Gudmundson: We’re looking at Anthony’s ten digits. They’re all still intact with two hands there.

Anthony Vietri: I didn’t think when it happened because I was crushing black grapes that were, like, just blood colored. And when I looked down in that thing, I was pretty sure there were gonna be fingers in there. 

Erik Gudmundson:  Wow.

Anthony Vietri: But somehow, so those are things you learn. Those are mistakes that you learn not to bring forward. As far as, using those in our wines, like I was just mentioning, the wine parchment with the dried grapes. I mean, that is something, a good example of an experiment that we did that was successful.

Cedar was an experiment with a grape that is called nebbiolo, which is grown all over the world, and it fails essentially everywhere. And even where it’s from in Italy, it only grows well decently, on a couple of hilltops. 

And so, of course, because we are, we were driven to plant it. We did. And it did not fail here for some reason. And in fact, it was very wonderful to grow. And by the third or fourth year, I was quite surprised by this. And so having, I was working in the tasting room then, and, of course, the regulars kind of knew that we were doing this thing. And it was supposed to be just for us at the house, you know, because it was not gonna be something that Americans would be interested in, we thought. And it turned out to be our most important wine. 

So, there are little things like that you have to just keep an open mind about and kind of stay your course, but, like, listen to what folks are saying and, you know, give it a chance. And so there are a lot of things that we did that we weren’t sure about. Like, when we made La Prima Donna, it was a blend of several several white varieties.

And there were Chardonnay was huge then. It was the only white wine. 

And Pinot Grigio was ex was county, like, a starter wine, and it was kept very low alcohol and very light and picked green. And so here we had this aromatic, rich white wine, which was completely against what was being made then. But I just had this idea from the beginning. This is what I wanted to make for a white wine.

So, after a few years, when I finally decided on the blend and I blended it, I knew that I was gonna have to tell my family that I had done this. And in order to not hear no, I had not broken it to them ahead of time. And so, when I finally I’ll never forget the day that I knew I was going to do it. I had gone through every one of my options, and I said, No. This is it. 

That night, I didn’t sleep. And so I remember just being up the whole night. I got up that day, and I did it. And we had a friend who happened to stop by, and she’s a really smart wine person. And I didn’t tell her anything about it, and I just said, hey. Would you like to try this sample? And she did, and she was very positive about it. So I was like, okay. Great. 

So but the difficult part was I had to go home at night in front of four generations and break it to them. And so I did at the dinner table, and I’d never forget. I was sitting at one end of my father-in-law, who built this bar we’re sitting at. He was sitting at the other end, and I said that I had blended these grapes to make this wine, and there was just dead silence. 

And then finally, he cleared his voice, and he just said, now why would you go and do that? And it just was literally like I’d been shot, you know, like, with a very dull arrow right near my heart, not even through it, and not just, like, agonizing. It’s terrible. He eventually did come around on it, and he was our greatest salesman of that line. So all’s well that ends well.

Erik Gudmundson: Well, knowing a little bit more about your approach, is there any trend or maybe something in the wine industry these days that you can’t stand knowing that you intentionally try not to pay attention to what other wineries are doing?

Anthony Vietri: No. I just, I don’t really, I don’t really know what they’re up to too much. And I just, I mean, I know, but at the same time, I don’t really think about it because it’s like to me, we’re at, we’re almost like, if I read that, like, the car industry is now focused on SUVs, let’s say, I go. And then I continue on because we’re not, like, the same thing at all. 

And so that’s kind of how we’ve cut ourselves away from the main industry. I don’t really pay as much attention. I’m just all, I’m focused on is, can we have people come through that door, on Saturday? And that’s still every week a bit of butterflies. And so that’s all I worry about. You know? And if they do, we’re okay. And if they don’t, then this is over. Right?

Liam Dempsey: Aside from suggesting that folks come out and visit your wine and come into the tasting room during your open hours, what tip, Anthony, would you tell someone who’s curious about learning more about wine so that they get the most out of a wine experience?

Anthony Vietri: I have to say, keep an open mind. So, like, explore varieties and regions. I guarantee you that there will be varieties and regions that you hate now, you’ll love late,r and vice versa. And that’s what makes it exciting. Just look for those things, and then you’ll start to identify, you know, what things you like and how they go with certain foods. And then after a while, you’re like, I would never have oysters unless I had this wine, you know, or I’ve never had steak from so and so’s farm without a wine, you know, that I love. 

That would be my main advice is to just keep that open mind, and you will enjoy it so much more. Strangely, it’s a little bit of a challenge for most Americans, because, like, when we started, in 2001 with the tasting room being open, the clientele all wanted either a very oaky cabernet as the red, or a very oaky Chardonnay as the white. And it was puzzling to me, but I eventually realized it’s just an American kind of thing, and this is how we learn about things.

That’s changed over time because we’ve gotten more and more it’s wine’s become more and more part of the general culture. Whereas when we first started, you know, people had a little bit of knowledge, and they were willing to, like, accept, like, one of it. Don’t even get me involved in the others. I don’t wanna, you know, take that on. That was kind of the attitude. 

But then the young people started coming in, and they were the complete opposite. The young people were like, oh, I don’t care what the grapes are. The weirder, the more interesting to me. If it’s from it doesn’t have to be from France. It’s from Greece? That’s really interesting. I’ve not had one. Let me try it. It’s Russian? Let me try that. 

And so, they were sitting at the same bar with people from my generation that were the Chardonnay Cabernet crowd, and the Chardonnay Cabernet crowd started looking at them and how they looked at things, and just changed. You could just see it happen. And, like, within two years, the young people changed the whole crowd, and that changed everything for us. That was pretty amazing to watch. Something I hadn’t seen coming. You know?

Erik Gudmundson: You’re a hidden gem down here in Southern Chester County. Tell us about a business or nonprofit in the area that folks should know more about.

Anthony Vietri: Oh my gosh. K9 Partners for Life are great people. The, oh, jeez. Stroudwater. They are fantastic folks. The work that these folks are doing, I’m sorry. This one caught me off guard. There are so many, and I love our regional Latino restaurants and culture that’s going on here. It’s really cool. I mean, the food is just fantastic, in that respect. And it’s changed so much just in the past twenty years because of that. It’s really brought up the game all the way around. So, like, you’ve got this, fundamentally traditional, authentic food coming out, and it’s forced the other folks in the Italian business and the American business and this and that to up their games because, what they’re doing is, like, showing you up. You know? And so it brought all the ships up, and that’s been amazing to see. 

So as far as specific places, I would say, please do go see the farm wineries around us. There are several in Chester County, support any kind of farms in this area. So I was, I had the opportunity to work with,the Chester County Ag Development Council and be on that board for a while.

And, oh my gosh, the most wonderful things that you see are the farmers that they brought a claim to every year and brought attention to. And we do such wonderful dairy here and cheese and row crops and beef, wonderful beef here. All of these different farmers were just amazing to get to meet. 

And whenever we gave an award to them, I would go out to the farm, and I would be so distracted just wandering around their farms and just seeing this. You know? It’s just amazing that it still exists, to be honest with you, because it’s not easy. So I would say, please support those folks because, once they’re gone, it’s just not able to be replaced.

And thanks for mentioning K9 Partners and the Stroud Water Center. Folks listening, we spoke with Kirsten Downey from the K9 Partners some time ago and John Jackson from the Stroud Water Center, Water Research Center. So we’ll be sure to link to those two episodes over on our show notes at startlocal.co.

Anthony, we’ve had a fantastic time here, and we’ve talked about how clear, it’s really clear that you love what you’re doing. Erik and I have been here a few times, Erik, more than I, and he always talks about how much your staff love it here and how friendly they are and welcoming and really enthusiastic about it, which makes me wonder, are you hiring? And if so, how can folks figure out how to work with you?

Anthony Vietri: I think the easiest thing to do is, come have a glass of wine and just, you know, write something on a little piece of paper. This is how we operate here, and they’ll get it to my wife, Karen, and, my daughter, Sophia, or I. 

And, one day, you might get that phone call in the middle of the night that you were dreading. Because you’re and then, you know, you might not even remember having left it here, and you’re like, how did you get my number? We get a lot of that.

Erik Gudmundson: How can the community support Va La Vineyards and the work that you and your family are doing here every day?

Anthony Vietri: That they’re already doing it. We have been just completely blessed here by the support. I can’t even begin to tell you, you know, the things that make you on a really long day, you’re sitting there in bed, and you’re like, I just can’t even get up tomorrow. I’m too tired. 

And you think about, you know, folks that, you know, came here after their wedding, folks that are having are coming in to get your wine to have at a special meal, and not just Christmas and Thanksgiving, but, our eighth anniversary, you know, because, they proposed in our backyard.

And people that move near here to be near us. That’s the crazy thing. And all of these things, I mean, there’s nothing you can do more than that.

And so we just say thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Please know that we cherish the support beyond anything that we can put into words really can.

Liam Dempsey: Anthony Vietri, farmer and winemaker of Va La Family Farm Wines. Where can folks connect with you, learn more about your wonderfully unique wines, and perhaps pick up a bottle or two?

Anthony Vietri: So we’re here at the farm Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays, from noon till about 05:30, unless we’re closed. Our website is www.valavineyards.com. And, we’re also on the Book of Faces, and we’re also in the Instagram.

Erik Gudmundson: Anthony, thank you very much for letting us come into your tasting room, make it look like RadioShack threw up all over the bar here, to use your line from earlier, but, we really enjoyed our conversation as always. Thank you.

Anthony Vietri: Thank you. Thank you, guys.

Liam Dempsey: And thanks to you for listening to our show. We’re so grateful for your support.

Thanks to my cohost, Erik Gudmundson for leading our conversation today and to Joe Casavona for making this all happen. Great work, fellas. 

We’ll be sure to post links to everything we’ve talked about in the show over on our website at startlocal.co. We publish a new episode every fortnight. You can subscribe to our show everywhere you listen to podcasts, and you can subscribe to get new podcasts, invites to our networking events, and more by heading to our website, again, over at Star Local. 

That’s us for now. Goodbye.