A Central Pa. winemaker offers 10 years of life lessons to share, to toast

Thorn Hill Vineyards celebrated its 10th anniversary last month with a party, welcoming community members who are now part of the family that calls the Lancaster County Tasting Room home.

“If I look at where we are,” Thorn recently said, “10 years ago we had over 200 people who came to kick us off, to celebrate. Our friends. Our family. The people we went to church with. The people we have done business with. They all came to support us. »

Today, Thorn Hill Vineyards has nearly 700 club members who are part of a group not only stopping in for a glass of wine or a purchase, but attending many of the events the winery hosts throughout the year. ‘calendar year. Jack and Amy Thorn opened the business at 1945 Fruitville Pike on December 2, 2011, the only one of its kind in Pennsylvania.

Those who have been there for all or part of the past decade have seen the tasting room double in size and an outdoor patio built to accommodate more guests in addition to the construction of an air-conditioned area for wine storage.

In the meantime they have seen more events on the program, with the well-established Wild Women of Wine! anchoring the list on the first Wednesday of each month. There are also Wine & Wisdom, Wine & Yoga conferences, a Wine and Wheels event every October that hosts vintage cars, and now onboard wine trips. Its Book Vino club soon plans to celebrate the 60 books the group has read since its inception.

They also host events at their Lake County, CA tasting room, including new wine releases. Thorn Hill sources its grapes from nearly 100 acres of vineyards located in Lake and Sonoma counties and the Napa Valley.

During this time, Thorn continued to develop and experiment. with its wine list, drawing on the group of dry varietals and blends she has created during her monthly trips to California. Two she plans to release this year include a sparkling and a red similar to the first she did. In total, there are more than a dozen available for purchase.

“I like to challenge myself,” she said. “Wine is an art for me. I like to make the same varietals, and once I have a varietal, I will do it over and over again because people like it and it becomes their favorite. But, you know, there are so many varietals that I haven’t explored yet. I can’t wait to make maybe a Tempranillo, or a Petit Verdot, 100% pure varietal. It’s funny.”

For Amy, this journey has been a fulfillment since she and her husband began the adventure by buying property in California in 2005. “I really want to make world-class wine,” she said, “ and [California] was a place where we could do that.

Along the way, she said, she learned to “accept the disruption” caused by a number of obstacles the business faced. “You will be disturbed. Things are going to be out of your control. Nature will take over the show to a large extent, whether you are a farmer or a winemaker.

In their case, that includes a 2014 earthquake that created a pile of wine-filled barrels “in a heap” on the cellar floor, multiple growing seasons that featured fires and the accompanying smoke, then COVID and the financial and emotional damage it has established.

Overcoming these obstacles took everything from commitment to passion to perseverance. “I think it’s really important to celebrate your successes,” she said, noting that she’s had her share of those based on the ratings her wines have received. “If you only look at your failures for each success, you’re going to have 10 failures. It’s like that. So you really have to celebrate the successes and not minimize them. I think that’s really important.

Sharing these achievements has been important to her, both with her family and with those who drink her wines. “I firmly believe that when your passion meets a need in the world, you will have found your true calling. So, for me, being a winegrower and making wine is my true vocation.

“But what I’ve discovered over the past 10 years is that I just want to share the secrets of how you manifest that vision and achieve your dreams with other people,” she said. . “The community and what we’ve created here in central Pennsylvania and California has brought me so much joy and been such a wonderful experience.”

It would be remiss not to mention what she called the most formidable challenge, chasing after her son Jonathan was killed in a head-on collision in Lake County, California in November 2019. She recalled when he drove to California after the purchase and camped there for four months. “There was nothing, it was just raw soil,” she said. “There was no electricity. There was no water. It was just a pure possibility, a piece of land that would end up being this family dream. So there was a lot of love that went through there.

At the time, Jonathan oversaw the Red Hills Tasting Room and the family’s wine ranch, and was also involved in a variety of community projects, including Westside Community Park in Lakeport, according to a story in the lake. County News. He was a member of the park committee for four years.

His sister Rachael runs the Lancaster Tasting Room.

“We’ve had some really tough stuff along the way,” Amy said. “Lake County and what we had there was his dream. So now I’m even more committed than I’ve ever been to keeping that dream alive.

“I want people to know that when you embark on these dreams and try to achieve them, there are these challenges, really heartbreaking challenges. But it’s our life,” she said. “If you talk to everyone, they have difficulties, they have challenges, they have losses. So you look at the people around you. Look what you have. Make it your goal. If there’s a drop left in your glass, celebrate.

Following:

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