How Connecticut wineries look to put pandemic behind them; new ‘Passport to CT Wine Country’ aims to help

On a hillside in Wallingford, the day is overcast with a fine drizzle as winery owner Joe Gouveia walks among rows of vines that will bear grapes for chardonnay and Moscato wines this fall.

“It’s been very slow, just in the past couple of weeks,” Gouveia said recently, pointing to the growth of new shoots on the gnarled branches. “With the hot weather, this is going to take off like crazy.”

Connecticut’s farm wineries — those that grow their own grapes — are looking for a similar forecast, as the modest, but growing industry in the state looks to put COVID-19 behind it.

There were encouraging signs even last summer, said Emiliano C. Villanueva, chairman of the management and marketing business division at Eastern Connecticut State University.

“Last summer, remember when we were open a little bit more, after the first, I would say, horrible year of the pandemic?” Villanueva, an expert in the global wine industry, said. “I wouldn’t say it was thriving, but it was working.”

Across Connecticut, many of the state’s licensed farm wineries — now numbering about 45 — depend on the tourist and event business that sharply declined during the early days of lockdowns and subsequent surges in coronavirus variants.

On top of that, sales to restaurants that were closed slid and tastings at wineries that often lead to sales thinned out, said Hilary Hopkins Criollo, president of the Connecticut Vineyard and Winery Association.

“It really negatively disrupted everyone’s — all the wineries — business,” said Criollo, who runs the family-owned Hopkins Vineyard in Warren.

Hopkins, thought to be the oldest licensed farm winery in the state, dating back 40 years, saw a dramatic decline in visitors during times when infections surged, at 50%, if not more, Criollo said.

A few wineries in the state were forced to close, Criollo said, including Miranda Vineyard in Goshen, which opened in 2007, according to its website. Miranda couldn’t be reached for comment, but a post on its Facebook page says it has closed permanently.

In Colchester, Priam Vineyard went on the market last year. The 22-year-old winery and vineyard survived — even thrived — in the pandemic as tents were pitched on the grounds. But the owners decided to sell, the effort to make every use of outdoor space exhausting after six years of robust expansion.

One advantage that farm wineries had throughout the pandemic was access to outside open-air spaces.

“Anyone that could, as a winery, moved outside as much as we could,” Criollo said. “It did help. It didn’t make up for the losses, but it certainly did help, thank goodness.”

At Wallingford’s Gouveia Vineyards, Gouveia transformed a 140-acre, vegetable farm he bought in 1999 into a vineyard now planted with nearly 25,000 vines on 25 acres.

Annually, the winery produces about 7,000 cases, or nearly 85,000 bottles, Gouveia said.

“By having a huge deck — we built it at the perfect time — we did it the year before Covid,” Gouveia said. “And we have so many open fields that you can see, we have so many acres. People were a little more comfortable than if you were indoors.”

Gouveia said he’s upbeat about the prospects of the industry, as the state emerges from the pandemic.

“We’re hoping this goes away once and for all because it’s tough on everybody,” Gouveia said. “We’ve been supported in the past, and I don’t see any reason not to be supported in the future.”

Passport to CT Wine Country

The state’s winery and vineyard industry, by all accounts, came into the pandemic strong. The number of farm wineries was slowly increasing as wine consumption spread to a wider cross-section of the drinking public, beyond its more high-brow roots.

As the number of wineries grew, many banded together to form the Connecticut Wine Trail, promoting not only their products but wineries as visitor destinations with concerts and other events.

Although the recent COVID surge of an omicron subvariant remains a concern, the state Department of Agriculture will soon launch a rebranded “passport” program to promote visits to participating farm wineries.

The program, now more than a decade old, will be called “Passport to CT Wine Country,” a change from the original “Passport to CT Farm Wineries.”

“It’s a very slight change but the thinking is when you travel to another country, you get a passport, so we’re trying to tie all that together,” Rebecca Eddy, a spokeswoman for the state agriculture department.

The program also is dropping the printed passport and moving solely to a mobile phone app. Visits to participating wineries will be electronically “stamped,” earning points for prize drawings.

The app also will allow wineries to update information about events or, say, the release of a new wine, Eddy said. (More information on the app and how to receive a newsletter is available at ctwinecountry.com)

“This is meant to encourage folks to get out there,” Eddy said. “Our farm wineries have continued to grow, plant and cultivate their vines throughout the pandemic,” Eddy said. “This is an opportunity to go visit them, show your support and enjoy a taste of award-winning wines as you travel around the state.”

‘Changed the marketplace for us’

Connecticut’s wine and vineyard industry is relatively new, the first licenses issued in the 1970s. The biggest growth has come since the 2000s, and estimates of annual sales are up to $150 million.

While growing, Connecticut’s winery and vineyard industry is still dwarfed by other, geographically larger states.

Neighboring New York has nearly 10 times the number of wineries, at 400. And New York is outpaced by the wine-producing powerhouses of California, Washington State and Oregon, industry statistics show.

California, alone has 4,000 wineries, nearly half of the 8,000 across the country.

Villanueva, at Eastern Connecticut State University, said the wine-making in Connecticut is tied closely with wine tourism.

“The business model of the industry in Connecticut is small farm wineries,” Villanueva said. “They sell at the door and they sell you not only the bottle of wine but the experience, and that is something we can work on.”

Villanueva said the stories behind why wine-makers are growing grapes and producing wines in Connecticut also are attractive.

Hopkins Vineyard in Warren is located on a former dairy farm that had operated for 200 years. In the 1970s, Criollo’s parents made the decision to become a vineyard, choosing not to add more cattle as competition demanded that dairy farms grow in size.

In Wallingford, Gouveia tells the story of how he immigrated with his parents to Connecticut as a teenager from a small village in Portugal. He later became an entrepreneur and restaurant owner, before embarking on his vineyard.

Gouveia said he always remembered the small vineyard his parents had in Portugal, making wine for his family.

As the pandemic eases, there are still headwinds for local wineries: staff shortages; inflation increasing the cost of everything from diesel fuel to bottle labels; and competition from “non-farm” wineries that don’t grow grapes.

Wineries also have been unsuccessful in pushing legislation that would allow them to place their products on grocery store shelves in Connecticut.

“Covid, in general, changed the marketplace for us,” Criollo said. “More people are spending time eating and entertaining at home. For us, our biggest issue right now is to be able to sell our wine in grocery stores, which is where most people are shopping.”

Contact Kenneth R. Gosselin at kgosselin@courant.com.