RIO GRANDE – Hawk Haven Winery sits on land that has been in Todd Wuerker’s family for over a century. Today, the property is a 100-acre vineyard with beautiful outdoor seating that feels completely distinct from everything that surrounds it. In the summer, the Rootstock concert series brings zydeco, jazz, and folk music to the property. These moments, with hundreds of folks gathered on the lawn at sunset, feel like the culmination of the Wuerker’s century of work.
The land has changed dramatically since those first days, when Todd’s grandparents first settled in Cape May and chopped trees by hand to make room for cows and chickens. A massive barn was built early on, in the mid 1950s, and still stands tall in the middle of the property. The Wuerker’s pivoted from dairy as the industry consolidated and put smaller dairy farms out of business. “We could no longer keep up,” Todd said.
So they pivoted. Todd’s grandparents planted lima beans, watermelon, cantelope, and other crops here in the early ‘60s. Lima beans were a huge crash crop for the family and were a staple of the American diet for much of the 20th century. They could grow reliably here, but lima bean production largely shifted to California and the Wuerker’s found themselves unable to buy seeds in the quantity they needed.
They pivoted again, this time to string beans. But when the wholesale price went from 11 cents to 10 cents a pound, the numbers didn’t work anymore. “The margins were just too slim,” Todd said.
So, another pivot to baby lima beans was in order. But a catastrophic miscalculation on the part of their supplier, who gave them bad advice on when to plant, meant that all of the growers in the region had ripe crops at once. There were so many lima beans ready to harvest that farms like the Wuerker’s could not process the sheer volume. And even if they could, the surplus meant that demand was almost nonexistent.
The next pivot was to pumpkins. “That was successful for a period of time, Todd said. “But then NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) was passed. That meant Mexico and Canada could trade freely with the United States, and it was cheaper for Canada to grow and ship pumpkins to our area than it was for us to grow and sell them.”
The final pivot, to wine, was a new frontier for the Wuerker family. Wine production was new to the Cape when they floated the idea in 2006.
Todd said: “This is a new viticultural area in the wine world, we’ve only been doing this for 20 years. Most viticultural regions have been doing this for 100 years or more. So we were really trying to figure out what grapes work best – there’s no suggestions, no rules what to do – it’s just try it and see what works, and what doesn’t. Which makes it daunting.”
Hawk Haven’s first vintage released in 2007, an American Kestrel White, a Red Table Wine, Merlot, and Cabernet Sauvignon. They are still experimenting, and managing the production process season-to-season is a daunting task. It takes three people two weeks of full-time labor just to protect against wild birds like starlings and catbirds, which can ravish an unprotected field.
But the hard work and relatively new growing region brings unexpected surprises. The winery’s Cabernet Franc, which is traditionally used as a blending grape, grows sweeter here than in other regions. Todd said they are selling it in a standalone wine, much to their delight.
Todd said that the winery is his haven. “We have been so blessed with the opportunity to share this place with other people. It’s so casual and relaxing here. We want our property to be open to anybody.”
Visit Hawk Haven Winery at 600 S Railroad Ave, in Rio Grande. They are open year-round.
