Thursday, July 04, 2013CONNEAUT, Ohio -- Arnie Esterer is the real deal, a purist and the godfather of Ashtabula County’s wine industry.
His Markko Vineyard in Conneaut was the first in Ohio to successfully grow European Vinifera grapes, the chardonnay and Riesling wines his vines produce are said to be among the best in the United States, and a trip to his vineyard is like a taste of the Old World.
“We believe wine is a food,” Esterer tells nearly every visitor he greets. “It’s healthy and nutritious and should be consumed with food. It’s the beverage of moderation, not to be abused.”
His mantra, recited on Markko Vineyard’s wine lists, website and promotional materials, comes from 45 years of “participating in a tradition almost as old as mankind itself -- the making of wine, the blood of life,” he says.
Esterer, an engineer by training, and his late partner, Tim Hubbard, planted their first Vinifera rootstock in 1968, carefully following the instructions and adapting the cultural practices of their mentor, Konstantin Frank, a viticulturist who immigrated to the United States in 1951 and settled in the Finger Lakes region of New York.
Frank’s research at Cornell University’s Geneva Experiment Station demonstrated how the renowned European Vinifera grapes could be grown in a cold climate. In 1962, he founded the Vinifera Wine Cellars in Hammondsport, N.Y, today a third-generation family business, and later established the American Wine Society. Frank died in 1985 but not before seeing his work take root in Ohio.
“I met Dr. Frank in 1967,” Esterer recalls. “He said, ‘If you do as I do, you’ll succeed, and if you succeed, I get the credit. But if you fail, it’s your fault.”
Esterer memorializes his mentor on wall displays in the Markko Vineyard tasting room, a simple setting where customers sit at a dining-room size table, sip samples and eat Ohio-made cheeses. Off to one side is a large wooden countertop behind which wine bottles are stacked and retail sales recorded. The average sale price is $25 to $30.
Markko Vineyard consists of 15 acres of chardonnay, Riesling, cabernet and pinot noir grapes and its annual production is nominal -- which is exactly what Esterer, the purist, wants. The land is about three miles south of Lake Erie, which moderates the climate, and sits on a glacial till where the soil is defined as platea silt loam, “great for growing grapes,” he says.
“All the great wine-growing regions of the world are located near large bodies of water. Then you have to have elevation and dry soils.”
Esterer employs just one full-time employee, veteran wine taster Linda Frisbie, and as many as 15 part-time workers during the season. “The winery is very capital intensive, the vineyard very labor intensive,” he says.
The winery has an annual capacity of 5,000 gallons.
“We designed the winery, and how many tanks we have, to handle the normal production of the vineyard -- you need to hold it for two to three years,” he says. “So if you’re producing 5,000 gallons of wine, you need to have 15,000 gallons of storage capacity, either barrels or stainless steel.”
Following Frank’s lead, Esterer planted white oak trees brought from France in 1976, “so we grow our own barrel wood.” French oak barrels sell for $1,000 apiece, he points out; American oak barrels for $100.
In the wine cellar, the soft and fluffy black mold that darkens the room also came from France. “It only survives when you have high humidity, and you need high humidity so the barrels don’t dry out -- so you don’t lose the wine out of the barrels. And it cleans the air,” he says.
Esterer smiles when asked if his business is profitable. Yes and no, he answers, depending on the weather and point of view.
“We’ve had a couple of bad years with frost, and with global warming, we’ve had some climate change. But this is agriculture,” he observes, and he never wanted his life’s work defined by dollars.
“Arnie is big proponent of viticulture, the growing of grapes, and oenology, the science of making wine,” affirms Mark Winchell, executive director of the Ashtabula County Convention & Visitors Bureau.
After Esterer “proved Vinifera grapes can be grown here, it opened the floodgates, and the opportunity came for this region to produce world-class wine,” he says. “Today there are 22 wineries here within a half hour of each other, and almost all of them are doing some form of Viniferas.”
At the Ashtabula Agricultural Research Center a few miles west of Markko Vineyard in North Kingsville, Greg Johns is performing tests to learn how to increase vine survival during especially cold winters.
“We look to Arnie for his experience and guidance,” he says.
“He’s a purist. He lets the wine speak for itself, and by following that philosophy I would say many of his wines are tops in the East. His chardonnay can hold up its head with the best in the world. When they are great, they are really great.”
Esterer, a man of modest means, is matter-of-fact when he rates his wines.
“Chardonnay is our most consistent grape, year in and year out,” he relates. “I think we can beat California, hands down, on chardonnay. We can beat California on Riesling. They can beat us on reds but we make nice reds, too.”
This year, he says, the grape-growing season is off to a good start. “It didn’t get real warm early like the year before. It was cool, then it got warm and we’ve had plenty of rain.The vines look happy.”
So, too, is Esterer, knowing that the bloom has finished, the crop is set.
“We encourage everybody to drink a glass of wine with their meals,” he reiterates.
“Even if you’re eating a Big Mac, it’s a great idea to drink a glass of wine.”'
EDITOR's NOTE: This story appears in the July print edition of The Business Journal.
Copyright 2013 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.
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