“Fresh” and “local” are terms thrown around a lot by marketers, but for Hamilton Wilde, the Director of Operations of Willow Creek Winery, they’re guiding principles that keep the business grounded. Hamilton, daughter of winery founder and biochemist Barbara Wilde, was born and raised on the Cape. She says folks can tell when things are fresh and local, and when they aren’t.
“A lot of people go the cheaper route—buy something from a big corporation versus a boutique or local place. But it doesn’t feel good, and there’s a quality difference. When you buy local, you can look at the product directly, tell where it came from, if it’s fresh. I would rather a customer come in and enjoy our products, even if it’s a tad more expensive to source local. That’s what brings people back,” Hamilton told Do the Shore during a record-breaking heatwave.
Most of the seafood on the menu is sourced from a local fishermen’s co-op, Dock Street Seafood in Wildwood. It’s a bustling market on Park Blvd—you can hardly miss it. Fishermen gather here every morning and lay out their catches. The co-op structure means that the fishermen get paid more than they would at a traditional outfit, Hamilton said.
“They’re coming together and selling things jointly. It really felt like giving back to the community rather than going to a larger corporation,” she said.
They sell a huge variety of seafood, including lobsters they catch up in New England and bring back down live to Wildwood. Thanks to Dock Street, lobster roll is new on the menu this year. So is fish and chips, with fresh-caught white fish and handmade truffle chips.
That heat has been a challenge for Willow Creek, which grows wine grapes on-site. The winery is something like a community garden. Stop by in the morning and you’ll see joggers and bikers exercising on the property. Guests come out just to see the flowers in bloom, which are brought in by the truckload every season.
“You can’t quite call it Longwood, but during planting season, huge semi-trucks filled with buds and flowers are coming here to make deliveries. We get more dropped off than most nurseries,” owner Barbara Wilde told Do the Shore in a past interview.
But today, Hamilton Wilde is praying for consistent days of rain, and says that hot days like today are as stressful for the grapes as they are for people.
“On hot days when our clothing sticks to our bodies, it’s like that with grapes,” she said. Leaf clusters on the vine protect the grapes but can sometimes trap moisture inside—especially on hot, humid days. Trapped moisture can cause rot. Workers at the farm trim away leaves to prevent this and check the tops of the vines daily to make sure they don’t get too long.
“These suckers grow an inch of height a day, which can take energy away from the grape clusters if left unattended,” Hamilton said.
Thirteen is the ideal leaf-to-grape-cluster ratio, and making sure things are proper means counting by hand the number of leaves on each of the thousands of plants. Phew.
Thirteen is also the number of grape varieties grown at Willow Creek Winery, including Pinot Noir, Merlot, Malbec, Cabernet Sauvignon, and Cabernet Blanc. Malvasia Bianca, a varietal native to Italy and Greece, is particularly rare; Willow Creek is one of only three wineries on the East Coast growing it—and the only one to sell it solo, not as part of a blend. The 2020 version currently in rotation is off-dry and aromatic, while the 2024 vintage, just released this week, is crisp, dry, and refreshing for summer.
This whole property was once a soybean field, but you wouldn’t know it at a glance. There’s an electric current in the air, like something magical could happen at any moment. That’s intentional. Alice in Wonderland was the inspiration for the winery’s gardens, murals, and statues. Venture off the beaten path and you’ll stumble upon “Alice’s Garden,” with giant playing cards, a human-sized chess board made of stone, and a table with mad guests seated and waiting.
There are so many hidden details waiting to be found. We’ll spoil a few: there’s an old orange tractor that a painted wood chicken calls home. A coop of real chickens hides somewhere on the property. If you want to buy eggs, just ask a bartender!
And don’t leave before you’ve spotted—and named—at least five varieties of flowers.
It takes a lot of work to keep things local and fresh. But for Hamilton, there’s no other choice.
“If you keep feeding into that big corporate machine, eventually that’s all that will be left,” she said.
Visit Willow Creek Winery, open seven days a week, at 168 Stevens Street in West Cape May. Tell them Do the Shore sent you!
This article was written as part of a paid sponsorship with Willow Creek Winery. Contact the author, Collin Hall, at chall@cmcherald.com
