I recently had the good fortune to hear from Dr. Richard Lynn, owner of Greendance The Winery at Sand Hill in Mount Pleasant, Pennsylvania. I appreciate him taking the time from his busy schedule, especially now during the high winter inpatient census and resulting elevated workload, to update me on the status of his vineyard. Rick is also the vintner who oversees the large and diverse plantings surrounding his winery. On a very cold day, a few years ago, he took me out to a block of his Marquette vines that I believe are the largest planting of this cold-hardy hybrid grape variety in Pennsylvania. I was working on an article and had asked him to show me how he pruned his dormant grape vines so they would produce high-quality fruit. We discussed the attributes of the Saperavi grape and how it might be a good complement to the other varieties he was growing. It has been a minute since that frigid winter day in his vineyard, and since then, Rick has added Saperavi to his lineup of grapes along with some other notable additions. With those memories fresh in my mind and a curiosity as to where things stand now, I asked him to bring me up to date on his vines and the near term outlook for his vineyard. 

wpawinepirate: 

How is your Saperavi program progressing, and what other varieties are you planting?

Dr. Rick Lynn:

“My Saperavi story is probably not the one you want to hear, but it’s not over yet.  After our initial trial planting of Saperavi, we had a small harvest 2 years ago and just did a simple fermentation and spent little time tuning it.  It was pretty good, and I think I still have a few bottles left. In the meantime, we have (?wisely) expanded our vineyard areas to be able to produce most of our wine from what we grow here. That required planting blocks of Riesling, Kerner, Sauv Blanc, Cab Franc, and Chardonnay.  This was our 2nd harvest of Riesling in 2025. We had small harvests of Chardonnay from the trial planting and just planted a larger 2A block in 2025.  We had temperatures in the vineyard of -13ºF last winter and did not expect many vinifera buds or vines to survive the insult.  Surprisingly, we had a reasonable harvest of Riesling and Vidal Blanc, and dribbles of Chardonnay, Kerner, and Sauv Blanc, back to the Saperavi. We planted a large block in 2023 and 2024, and the cold event last winter killed at least 30-40% of the vines. I was very surprised that the Saperavi was so selectively affected by the cold event. Possibly, they moved more slowly into the maximal stages of dormancy than the other vinifera.  Most of them were on 3309 roots, and some on Riparia, and I don’t have the data to determine if that was a discriminating variable. Our larger block was half from Wiemer and half from Eric Amberg. My Saperavi replants for 2026 have now been ordered from Eric Amberg and will be on 3309.”

Thank you, Rick, for sharing your candid insights with us. We all look forward to visiting Greendance Winery and Sand Hill Berries. 

greendancewinery.com  sandhillberries.com

Photo Credit: Greendance The Winery At Sand Hill