![]() ![]() “When we arrived on the North Fork, it was hardly a no-man’s land,” she said, but the sleepy agricultural region hadn’t experienced much change during the previous decades. With nine million visitors a year - 1.3 million of them heading to wineries - “the winemaking industry contributes $250 million to the $5.9 billion tourism industry on Long Island,” Ms. That translates to about 1.2 million gallons of wine annually, said Kristen Jarnagin, chief executive of Discover Long Island, a tourism bureau. Collectively they produce an average of 500,000 cases of wine each year, according to Steve Bate, the acting executive director of the Long Island Wine Council, which supports the industry through marketing, advocacy and education. There are some 2,000 acres devoted to growing grapes on Long Island - most of them on the North Fork, with more than 55 vineyards and wineries currently in operation. “The balance sheet dictates the value of the sale, not necessarily the parcel of land,” Ms. Prices have since rebounded, but selling this type of real estate remains challenging because a vineyard is a business. “When things are robust, as in the past couple of years, you get more interest.” “In 2009 all real estate took a crash,” said Carol Szynaka, the East End sales manager at Daniel Gale Sotheby’s International Realty, who handled the sale with her partner Mariah Mills. That sale was a victim of the economy at the time. One of their children, Giovanni, has taken over the business. Both Borgheses died tragically in 2014, Ann Marie from cancer, Marco several days later in a car crash. ![]() The vineyard was renamed Castillo di Borghese. But in 1999, with a pending divorce, they sold to an Italian prince named Marco Borghese and his American wife, Ann Marie, for almost $4 million. The inexperienced young Hargraves eventually did make wine, and ultimately expanded Hargrave Vineyards to 84 acres. (One of his siblings, Jason, has also passed away.) Damianos now runs the vineyard that his late father, Dan, founded in 1980, seven years after the Hargraves claimed their stake. Along with his siblings and their mother, Barbara, Mr. It’s also a year-round endeavor, requiring constant trimming and pruning, tying down vines, fixing trellises, and other endless tasks. “It’s very labor intensive, so you have to have a passion for it.” You’re farming, making a product,” said Pindar Damianos, 42, the youngest of five siblings who grew up working at their family’s Pindar Vineyards in Peconic. ![]() Viticulture - growing grapes - is “a hard business to be in. He said, ‘You can’t be a farmer and be in bed!’” she recalled. He taught us to get out of bed early in the morning. Luckily, a neighboring potato farmer named Mike Kaloski, who was known for experimenting with crops, offered to help. ![]()
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